She was clad like the meanest of her serving-maids, just as a common slave-wench who had stolen out to meet a lover of her own sort might have been.

When she came within a pace of him, he held his arms out.

She put hers out too, and for a moment they looked in silence into each other's eyes, and then she, seeing that the kiss which she expected did not come, parted her lips and said smilingly: "You need not fear to kiss them, dearest, they have not yet been polluted by the lips of Menkau-Ra, although all the city has been hailing him as the betrothed of Nitocris." Then he smiled too, and their lips met in such a long, silent kiss as only lovers give and take.
"Thy words are almost as sweet as thy kisses are, O Nitocris!" he said, "for I would sooner see thee--yes, I would sooner see thee in the hands of the Paraschites--this lovely body of thine dead--knowing that thy soul was waiting for mine on the shores of Amenti, than I would know that those sweet lips had been defiled by the touch of such as he; and yet surely thou hast spoken with him.

Did he not claim the fulfilment of the promise of the great king ?" "Ah yes," she replied softly, as she slipped out of his arms, "but it is one thing to claim and another to get.

Yes, I have spoken with him.