'"It is not meet," I said, "that I should make myself equal with
the Queen."
'"I said be seated," was her answer, so I sat down, and she began
to look at me with those dark eyes of hers. There she sat like
an incarnate spirit of beauty, hardly talking at all, and when
she did, very low, but all the while looking at me. There was
a white flower in her black hair, and I tried to keep my eyes
on it and count the petals, but it was of no use. At last, whether
it was her gaze, or the perfume in her hair, or what I do not
know, but I almost felt as though I was being mesmerized. At
last she roused herself.
'"Incubu," she said, "lovest thou power?"
'I replied that I supposed all men loved power of one sort or another.
'"Thou shalt have it," she said. "Lovest thou wealth?"
'I said I liked wealth for what it brought.
'"Thou shalt have it," she said. "And lovest thou beauty?"
'To this I replied that I was very fond of statuary and architecture,
or something silly of that sort, at which she frowned, and there
was a pause. By this time my nerves were on such a stretch that
I was shaking like a leaf. I knew that something awful was going
to happen, but she held me under a kind of spell, and I could
not help myself.
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