CHAPTER XIV
ALLAN MISSES OPPORTUNITY
ALL the while that she was talking thus the Lady or the Queen or the Witch-woman, Ayesha, had been walking up and down the place from the curtains to the foot of the dais, sweeping me with her scented robes as she passed to and fro, and as she walked she waved her arms as an orator might do to emphasise the more moving passages of her tale. Now at the end of it, or what I took to be the end, she stepped on to the dais and sank upon the couch as if exhausted, though I think her spirit was weary rather than her body.
Here she sat awhile, brooding, her chin resting on her hand, then suddenly looked up and fixing her glance upon me—for I could see the flash of it through her thin veil—said,
What think you of this story, O Allan? Do you believe it and have you ever heard its like?
Never,
I answered with emphasis, and of course I believe every word. Only there are one or two questions that with your leave I would wish to ask, O Ayesha.
By which you mean, Allan, that you believe nothing, being by nature without faith and doubtful of all that you cannot see and touch and handle. Well, perhaps you are wise, since what I have told you is not all the truth. For example, it comes back to me now that it was not in the temple on the Nile that I saw the vision of Aphrodite and of Isis, but elsewhere; also that it was here in Kôr that I was first consumed by passion for Kallikrates. In two thousand years one forgets much, O Allan. Out with your questions and I will answer them unless they be too long and foolish. Come, I wait.
O Ayesha,
I said humbly, reflecting to myself that my questions would, at any rate, be shorter than her varying tale, even I who am not learned have heard of these goddesses of whom you speak, of the Grecian Aphrodite who rose from the sea upon the shores of Cyprus and dwelt at Paphos and elsewhere—
