What else could I do? Besides, I loved her myself! And if there was
a momentary chagrin at having yonder golden knowledge put off by this
lovely interruption, yet I was flesh and blood, the gods could wait--they
had to wait long and often before, and when this sweet interpreter was
comforted we would have another try. So it happened I took her into my
heart and gave her the answer she asked for.

For a long time we sat in the dusky grandeur of the royal library, my
mind revolving between wonder and admiration of the neglected knowledge
all about, and the stirrings of a new love, while Heru herself, lapsed
again into Martian calm, lay half sleeping on my shoulder, but presently,
unwinding her arms, I put her down.

"There, sweetheart," I whispered, "enough of this for the moment; tonight,
perhaps, some more, but while we are here amongst all this lordly litter,
I can think of nothing else." Again I bid her turn the pages, noting
as she did so how each chapter was headed by the coloured configuration
of a world. Page by page we turned of crackling parchment, until by
chance, at the top of one, my eye caught a coloured round I could not
fail to recognise--'twas the spinning button on the blue breast of
the immeasurable that yesterday I inhabited. "Read here," I cried,
clapping my finger upon the page midway down, where there were some
signs looking like Egyptian writing. "Says this quaint dabbler in all
knowledge anything of Isis, anything of Phra, of Ammon, of Ammon Top?"

"And who was Isis? who Ammon Top?" asked the lady.

"Nay, read," I answered, and down the page her slender fingers went
awandering till at a spot of knotted signs they stopped. "Why, here