CHAPTER IX

ISSUS, GODDESS OF LIFE ETERNAL The confession of love which the girl’s fright had wrung from her touched me deeply; but it humiliated me as well, since I felt that in some thoughtless word or act I had given her reason to believe that I reciprocated her affection. Never have I been much of a ladies’ man, being more concerned with fighting and kindred arts which have ever seemed to me more befitting a man than mooning over a scented glove four sizes too small for him, or kissing a dead flower that has begun to smell…