“Darling,” replied Memnon, “it is well to be prepared for everything. This invasion may come to nothing. But if it does not, if Alexander does make his way to the capital—well, it is not to me you will have to look for help; by that time I shall——”
The poor woman started up and laid her hand upon the speaker’s mouth.
“Good words, good words!” she cried.
He smiled. “You are right, for as your favourite Homer says:
“‘In sooth on the knees of the gods lieth all whereof we speak.’
And now give him something yourself that he may remember you by.”
She detached a locket that hung round her neck, and put it into his hand. He raised it respectfully to his lips.
“And Clearista—she might spare something. Artemis bless the child! how soundly she sleeps!” said Memnon, looking affectionately at the slumbering girl. And indeed the voices of the speakers had failed to rouse her. Exquisitely lovely did she look as she slept, her cheek tinged with a delicate flush, her lips parted in a faint smile, her chestnut hair falling loosely over the purple coverlet of the couch.
“The darling won’t mind a curl,” said Memnon; “put that in my wife’s locket, and you will remember both of them together;” and he cut off a little ringlet from the end of a straggling lock.