And although my beauty be a little thing in the eyes of my lord,'
and she lifted her broidered skirt and curtseyed again, 'yet
here among my own people am I held right fair, and ever since
I was a woman the great lords of my kingdom have made quarrel
concerning me, as though forsooth,' she added with a flash of
passion, 'I were a deer to be pulled down by the hungriest wolf,
or a horse to be sold to the highest bidder. Let my lord pardon
me if I weary my lord, but it hath pleased my lord to say that
he loves me, Nyleptha, a Queen of the Zu-Vendi, and therefore
would I say that though my love and my hand be not much to my
lord, yet to me are they all.'
'Oh!' she cried, with a sudden and thrilling change of voice,
and modifying her dignified mode of address. 'Oh, how can I
know that thou lovest but me? How can I know that thou wilt
not weary of me and seek thine own place again, leaving me desolate?
Who is there to tell me but that thou lovest some other woman,
some fair woman unknown to me, but who yet draws breath beneath
this same moon that shines on me tonight? Tell me _how_ am I to
know?' And she clasped her hands and stretched them out towards
him and looked appealingly into his face.
'Nyleptha,' answered Sir Henry, adopting the Zu-Vendi way of
speech; 'I have told thee that I love thee; how am I to tell
thee how much I love thee? Is there then a measure for love?
Yet will I try.
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