you told me that you know something of women. Do not accept, go back
to Memphis. I will send you some old manuscripts to copy and pay you
whatever it is Nehesi allows for the librarian."

"Yet I accept, O Prince. As for Nehesi I fear him not at all, since at
the worst I can write a story about him at which the world will laugh,
and rather than that he will pay me my salary."

"You have more wisdom than I thought, Ana. It never came into my mind to
put Nehesi in a story, though it is true I tell tales about him which is
much the same thing."

He bend forward, leaning his head upon his hand, and ceasing from his
bantering tone, looked me in the eyes and asked:

"Why do you accept? Let me think now. It is not because you care for
wealth if that is to be won here; nor for the pomp and show of courts;
nor for the company of the great who really are so small. For all these
things you, Ana, have no craving if I read your heart aright, you who
are an artist, nothing less and nothing more. Tell me, then, why will
you, a free man who can earn your living, linger round a throne and
set your neck beneath the heel of princes to be crushed into the common
mould of servitors and King's Companions and Bearers of the Footstool?"

"I will tell you, Prince. First, because thrones make history, as
history makes thrones, and I think that great events are on foot in
Egypt in which I would have my share. Secondly, because the gods bring
gifts to men only once or twice in their lives and to refuse them is
to offend the gods who gave them those lives to use to ends of which we
know nothing. And thirdly"--here I hesitated.