"Here—and hereafter!"
Again I laughed. Triumphant. Thrilled at my evident power over such a being. But not thus easily was I to be won. I would make certain of his love.
"Nay, not tonight!"
He rose to his full height, folding his arms across his breast. His brilliant eyes flamed into mine—there was not a yard of distance between us, for I had unknowingly drawn close to the edge of the ring "Pass Not".
"Thou wilt summon thy Hesperus again, O Beloved?" The cadence of his tones thrilled me as never had I thrilled before.
"Assuredly."
"Soon?"
"Perhaps."
"A token from thee, my Queen, ere I depart?"
What had I to bestow? Then I remembered. On my finger I wore a ring set with a black opal. It had been my mother's and her mother's before her. But surely, it was mine now. It should have been sacred. But what was sacred to me—then? I stripped it from my finger, kissed it, and tossed it to him. And by that one piece of folly gave him a focus whereto he could always direct his thoughts, so, reach me, invariably, at his will! But I knew not that, at the time. Would that I had! The blaze of splendor—triumphant—from his eyes, well-nigh intoxicated me! I reeled backward to the center formed by the interlaced triangles. It was a genuine physical effort to keep from rushing forward again—to his embrace!
For a full hour I stood there, still guarded by the power of those protecting symbols I had traced upon the floor; accepting homage, as one by one his attendant host of lesser fallen angels and fiends and demons filed past me; each in his turn bending the knee and bowing his head in subjugation to their Lord's choice—their Queen to be! He, last of all his subject throng, saluted precisely as had the least of his followers. Then he, too, vanished, and I was alone.
That night I slept fitfully. Visions of pomp, and pride, and power filled my mind to drunkenness. Little could I recall of them when daylight filled my room, but while the dreams lasted, they were gorgeous. No one had entered my room, that I knew, for the door was locked on the inside. Yet on my dressing table I found a necklace the like of which never was known on earth before.
It was a long chain of some dusky yellow metal, neither copper nor gold. The links were strangely wrought and intricately twisted. Pendant from every link hung a transparent, ruby-colored stone; each one fashioned artfully to the semblance of a small human heart. And, most peculiar feature of all, while each heart-shaped stone was in reality smooth, yet at a casual glance each one seemed to be actually sweating drops of blood!
A jeweler to whom I showed them said it was due to some peculiarity of crystallization; but he could not for all his skill and his experience of years name the stones; and he was a sorely puzzled man. Nor was he at all pleased when I refused to tell him whence I had them. All I would vouchsafe was: "Oh, a gift from a ruling Prince—an admirer . . ."
I wore the gift of Hesperus, for such I knew the necklace to be, to a ball that night. I was never popular with the members of my own sex, but on that night it seemed to me that many who had at least formerly pretended to be nice to me acted as though they actually feared me. There was a truly great statesman there. I had never formally met him. But as I passed him during the
