moment, and ran back to the loggia where Paul still slept. Here she sat
and looked at him with burning eyes of love.

He was certainly changed in the eighteen days since she had first seen
him. His face was thinner, the beautiful lines of youth were drawn with a
finer hand. He was paler, too, and a shadow lay under his curly lashes.
But even in his sleep it seemed as if his awakened soul had set its seal
upon his expression--he had tasted of the knowledge of good and evil now.

The lady crept near him and kissed his hair. Then she flung herself on her
own couch, and soon she also slept.

It was six o'clock before they awoke, Paul first--and what was his joy to
be able to kneel beside her and watch her for a few seconds before her
white lids lifted themselves! An attitude of utter weariness and _abandon_
was hers. She was as a child tired out with passionate weeping, who had
fallen to sleep as she had flung herself down. There was something even
pathetic about that proud head laid low upon her clasped arms.

Paul gazed and gazed. How he worshipped her! Wayward, tigerish, beautiful
Queen. But never selfish or small. And what great thing had she not done
for him--she who must have been able to choose from all the world a
lover--and she had chosen him. How poor and narrow were all the thoughts
of his former life, everywhere hedged in with foolish prejudice and
ignorant certainty. Now all the world should be his lesson-book, and some
day he would show her he was worthy of her splendid teaching and belief in
him, and her gift of an awakened soul. He bent still lower on his knees,
and kissed her feet with deepest reverence. She stirred not. She was so
very pale--fear came to him for an instant--and then he kissed her mouth.