"Of what? Let me try and express to myself now what I could not
express or realize last night. She--Ziska--I thought was mine,--
mine from her dimpled feet to her dusky hair,--and she danced for
me alone. It seemed that the jewels she wore upon her rounded arms
and slender ankles were all love-gifts from me--every circlet of
gold, every starry, shining gem on her fair body was the symbol of
some secret joy between us--joy so keen as to be almost pain. And
as she danced, I thought I was in a vast hall of a majestic
palace, where open colonnades revealed wide glimpses of a burning
desert and deep blue sky. I heard the distant sound of rolling
drums, and not far off I saw the Sphinx--a creature not old but
new--resting upon a giant pedestal and guarding the sculptured
gate of some great temple which contained, as I then thought, all
the treasures of the world. I could paint the picture as I saw it
then! It was a fleeting impression merely, conjured up by the
dance that dizzied my brain. And that song of the Lotus-lily! That
was strange--very strange, for I thought I had heard it often
before,--and I saw myself in the vague dream, a prince, a warrior,
almost a king, and far more famous in the world than I am now!"

He looked about him uneasily, with a kind of nervous terror, and
his eyes rested for a moment on the easel where the picture he had
painted of the Princess was placed, covered from view by a fold of
dark cloth.

"Bah!" he exclaimed at last with a forced laugh, "What stupid
fancies fool me! It is all the vague talk of that would-be learned
ass, Dr. Dean, with his ridiculous theories about life and death.
I shall be imagining I am his fad, Araxes, next! This sort of