169
Peregrina:
So there are priests yet, servants of what Gods?
Is this a priestess this so rainbow-hued,
Like some bright Eastern bird?
Hou-Ché:
No Lady, no!
Incense I burn no more to any Gods,
Mine own forsook me, and the new are strange,
But you, O mistress, I would choose to serve
Likest a lady on a lotus set
Out Goddess of all Beauty and all Love
Who smil'd on me 'neath favourabler skys.
And I believe you come from far away
From some more happy to this sadder star!
Peregrina:
To me as unto you their Gods are strange,
For, in the temples I was us'd to know,
Inscrutable and immemorial,
