"What pain?" asked the princess.

"The torment of a heart consumed by the fires of Sechet," replied Nefert.

The princess looked thoughtfully at the ground, then she turned her eyes
eagerly on her friend.

"You are mistaken," she said; "I know what love and longing are. But you
need only wait till a feast day to wear the jewel that is your own, while
my treasure is no more mine than a pearl that I see gleaming at the
bottom of the sea."

"Thou canst love!" exclaimed Nefert with joyful excitement. "Oh!
I thank Hathor that at last she has touched thy heart. The daughter of
Rameses need not even send for the diver to fetch the jewel out of the
sea; at a sign from her the pearl will rise of itself, and lie on the
sand at her slender feet."

Bent-Anat smiled and kissed Nefert's brow.

"How it excites you," she said, "and stirs your heart and tongue! If two
strings are tuned in harmony, and one is struck, the other sounds, my
music master tells me. I believe you would listen to me till morning if
I only talked to you about my love. But it was not for that that we came
out on the balcony. Now listen! I am as lonely as you, I love less
happily than you, the House of Seti threatens me with evil times--and yet
I can preserve my full confidence in life and my joy in existence. How
can you explain this?"