"We are so very different," said Nefert.

"True," replied Bent-Anat, "but we are both young, both women, and both
wish to do right. My mother died, and I have had no one to guide me, for
I who for the most part need some one to lead me can already command, and
be obeyed. You had a mother to bring you up, who, when you were still a
child, was proud of her pretty little daughter, and let her--as it became
her so well-dream and play, without warning her against the dangerous
propensity. Then Mena courted you. You love him truly, and in four long
years he has been with you but a month or two; your mother remained with
you, and you hardly observed that she was managing your own house for
you, and took all the trouble of the household. You had a great pastime
of your own--your thoughts of Mena, and scope for a thousand dreams in
your distant love. I know it, Nefert; all that you have seen and heard
and felt in these twenty months has centred in him and him alone. Nor is
it wrong in itself. The rose tree here, which clings to my balcony,
delights us both; but if the gardener did not frequently prune it and tie
it with palm-bast, in this soil, which forces everything to rapid growth,
it would soon shoot up so high that it would cover door and window, and I
should sit in darkness. Throw this handkerchief over your shoulders, for
the dew falls as it grows cooler, and listen to me a little longer!--The
beautiful passion of love and fidelity has grown unchecked in your dreamy
nature to such a height, that it darkens your spirit and your judgment.
Love, a true love, it seems to me, should be a noble fruit-tree, and not
a rank weed. I do not blame you, for she who should have been the
gardener did not heed--and would not heed--what was happening. Look,
Nefert, so long as I wore the lock of youth, I too did what I fancied--
I never found any pleasure in dreaming, but in wild games with my
brothers, in horses and in falconry; they often said I had the spirit of
a boy, and indeed I would willingly have been a boy."