Some alteration she could not define had grown into his expression; the cold mastery of himself and others was still visible; but a new emotion had insensibly been created--something powerful and even dominant--for which she could find no name.

With a sharp, instinctive alarm, her lips parted.
"What is it ?" she said, apprehensively.

"Why are you here?
The time has not come for you to go out into the world ?" A faintly ironic smile flitted across his lips.
"Surely, if one is a Prophet, one can alter even prophecies." He said the words deliberately, looking down into her face.
The tone, the intentional flippancy of the words, came to her with a shock.

It was as if, by considered action, he had set about jeopardizing his own dignity.

A chill of undefined apprehension blew across her mind like a cold wind.
"I--I don't understand," she stammered.