A new mood was on her, and the very colour of her mind seemed to change
beneath it. It was no longer torture-torn and hateful, as I had seen
it when she was cursing her dead rival by the leaping flames, no longer
icily terrible as in the judgment-hall, no longer rich, and sombre, and
splendid, like a Tyrian cloth, as in the dwellings of the dead. No, her
mood now was that of Aphrodite triumphing. Life--radiant, ecstatic,
wonderful--seemed to flow from her and around her. Softly she laughed
and sighed, and swift her glances flew. She shook her heavy tresses,
and their perfume filled the place; she struck her little sandalled foot
upon the floor, and hummed a snatch of some old Greek epithalamium. All
the majesty was gone, or did but lurk and faintly flicker through her
laughing eyes, like lightning seen through sunlight. She had cast off
the terror of the leaping flame, the cold power of judgment that was
even now being done, and the wise sadness of the tombs--cast them off
and put them behind her, like the white shroud she wore, and now stood
out the incarnation of lovely tempting womanhood, made more perfect--and
in a way more spiritual--than ever woman was before.
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