and the man, standing there alone upon it, with a long, black shadow extending over the flags behind him, became suddenly conspicuous.
He had forgotten prudence, forgotten the necessity for caution, for concealment. The intoxication that flooded his brain was of such overpowering potency that it left no space for the thoughts of every day. He, in his newfound divinity, forgot to fear mankind, or even his fellows, the demigods.
With a bell-like clink of bangles, a girl stepped suddenly from the shadows huddled about the stairway of the temple, placed soft fingers upon his arm and drew him into concealment. As she emerged from the darkness, and ere she again vanished into it, dragging him after her, Chun saw her, as in a flash, and took in the vision of her with a wonderful completeness.
She was very small and slender and beautifully formed, as though the Gods who fashioned her had taken joy in the exquisite perfection of their handiwork; and the slim symmetry of her figure was delicately revealed by the soft silk cloth which, draped across her breasts, and leaving the right shoulder nude, fell from waist to ankles. Her arms, bare, shapely, something over thin—little virginal arms—showed against that vesture like foam upon a wave. Chun was struck breathless by the extreme whiteness of her—the whiteness and the divine frailty.
The small, oval face, under its low, wise fore-
