upon me?"--he demanded irritably.. "Art thou not my friend and
worshipper? Wilt preach? Wilt moralize on the folly of the time,--
the vices of the age? Thou lookest it,--but prithee hold thy peace
an thou lovest me!--we can but live and die and there's an end, . .
all's over with the best and wisest of us soon,--let us be merry
while we may!"

And he tossed a cluster of roses playfully in the air, catching
them as they fell again in a soft shower of severed fluttering
pink and white petals. Theos listened to his rambling, unguarded
words with a sense of acute personal sorrow. Here was a man,
young, handsome, and endowed with the rarest gift of nature, a
great poetic genius,--a man who had attained in early manhood the
highest worldly fame together with the friendship of a king, and
the love of a people, . . yet what was he in himself? A mere petty
Egoist, . . a poor deluded fool, the unresisting prey of his own
passions, . . the besotted slave of a treacherous woman and the
voluntary degrader of his own life! What was the use of Genius,
then, if it could not aid one to overcome Self, . . what the worth
of Fame, if it were not made to serve as a bright incentive and
noble example to others of less renown? As this thought passed
across his mind, Theos sighed, . . he felt curiously conscience-
stricken, ashamed, and humiliated, THROUGH Sah-luma, and solely
for Sah-luma's sake! At present, however, his chief anxiety was to
get his friend safely out of Lysia'a pavilion before she should
return to it, and his spirit chafed within him at each moment of
enforced delay.

"Come, come, Sah-luma!" he said at last, gently, yet with
persuasive earnestness.. "Come away from this place, . . the feast