duty calls him from you, and you feel lonely and neglected; that is quite
natural. But those whom I love, my father and my brothers, are also gone
to the war; my mother is long since dead; the noble woman, whom the king
left to be my companion, was laid low a few weeks since by sickness.
Look what a half-abandoned spot my house is! Which is the lonelier do
you think, you or I?"

"I," said Nefert. "For no one is so lonely as a wife parted from the
husband her heart longs after."

"But you trust Mena's love for you?" asked Bent-Anat.

Nefert pressed her hand to her heart and nodded assent:

"And he will return, and with him your happiness."

"I hope so," said Nefert softly.

"And he who hopes," said Bent Anat, "possesses already the joys of the
future. Tell me, would you have changed places with the Gods so long as
Mena was with you? No! Then you are most fortunate, for blissful
memories--the joys of the past--are yours at any rate. What is the
present? I speak of it, and it is no more. Now, I ask you, what joys
can I look forward to, and what certain happiness am I justified in
hoping for?

"Thou dost not love any one," replied Nefert. "Thou dost follow thy own
course, calm and undeviating as the moon above us. The highest joys are
unknown to thee, but for the same reason thou dost not know the bitterest
pain."