Then his thoughts recurred to what was the dominant emotion of the time with him, his love for Daphne. How, he asked himself, how should he make it known? How should he approach her? To speak directly, at least in the first instance, was not the custom of his race, though doubtless love, there as elsewhere, made exceptions of his own to the severest rule. Through her mother? But Theoxena was, he knew, only too thoroughly devoted to him. To her his wish would be a command; she would make it a matter of filial obedience with her daughter, and he wanted the voluntary submission that was wholly free. Through Cornelia? But would she favour such an alliance? She was a noble of the nobles, filled with the keenest sympathy for the people, but profoundly conscious of the social difference between her class and them, and with her own class she would certainly rank the well-born Cleanor.
Well, he said to himself, after a pause of reflection, which did not seem to make the matter clearer, "these things will settle themselves. I love her, and I think she loves me, so that nothing will keep us apart." And he broke into the beautiful choric song of the Antigone—for it was his habit, as it is the habit of all true lovers of poetry, thus to interrupt his solitary musings—
"O love invincible!"
After this came a stave of Alcæus, and after this again a piece of melodious tenderness from Sappho.
As he turned to retrace his steps to the house, for he had risen early, and the keen morning air made him feel that he had fasted long, he was startled to hear his name called from behind him, not the name by which he was known to the world, but the pet family name, which he had not heard since the home of his childhood had vanished in fire and blood.
"Cle," said the voice, and its tones seemed to be strangely familiar. He turned; no one was within sight but the gardener. The man had dropped the shears, and stood with his hands stretched out in a supplicating gesture.
"What is it?" he cried; "what or whom do you want?" He took two or three steps forward, and as he approached there seemed to be something strangely familiar in the figure before him.
"Yes, it is—" and the speaker swayed to and fro for a moment, and then fell unconscious to the ground. The wide-brimmed hat, which had been drawn down low over the face, to conceal, as it seemed, the features, was displaced by the fall, and revealed the graceful contour of the forehead, and the shapely head covered with short curls of sunny gold.
"Great Zeus!" cried Cleanor, as he lifted the prostrate figure from the ground. "Great Zeus! if I am not mad or dreaming, this is Cleoné come to life again."
Close by a tiny spring trickled down from a rock. Cleanor held his cap beneath it till it was half full, and dashed the water in his sister's face. She drew two or three deep breaths, and then opened her eyes. Vacant at first, for she could not remember where she was or what had happened, they soon became radiant with happy light.