"Oh, yes!" returned the young Roman. "That was exactly her view. But—" and the speaker paused in still greater embarrassment than ever. "Well—I must say it sooner or later—I have seen your sister."
"My sister! What has my sister got to do with it?" asked Cleanor in utter bewilderment. "I don't suppose you asked her advice, and if you did, she would not hinder you, I should suppose, from serving your country."
"Well," said Scipio, "I did ask her, though not exactly for her advice, and she said exactly what you supposed she would say."
"Then where is the difficulty? You want the thing yourself; all your friends advise you to take the chances. What is it that hinders? For heaven's sake, my friend, do explain what you mean, for it is quite past my understanding."
"Then, Cleanor, listen; if I offend you, as I can hardly help doing, be patient with me. First and foremost, then, I love your sister Cleoné. It is the dearest wish of my heart to make her my wife, and I think, that is, I hope, that she cares a little for me."
"I am delighted to hear it," cried the young Greek, as he sprang up and seized his friend's hands. "I am delighted to hear it. There isn't a better or braver girl in the world, if I may say so much of my own sister. You have heard her story, of course. Well, she deserves a good husband, if ever a girl did, and I am glad to think that she is likely to find one."
"I am delighted to hear you say so, though I don't feel anything like worthy of her. But now comes what I find it so hard to say. Cleoné is a match for anyone in the world, in birth as well as in herself. But, in the eyes of our law, she is not a match for a Roman citizen. By some accursed chance—though, indeed, but for this said chance I should never have seen her—she was made a slave, and is now a freed woman. Out of that status nothing, as far as I know, can raise her, and being in that status she cannot be my wife. In one sense there may be a marriage between us, but it would not be a marriage that would give her the rights and privileges of a Roman matron; it would not be a marriage which would open to our children the career of a Roman citizen. There, my dear friend, the murder is out; that is the bare fact, and if it seems an insult to you—and an insult, I fear, it must seem—pray remember that it is not of my making or doing."
"My dear friend," said Cleanor, "I won't pretend that what you have said hasn't hurt me. We have always been accustomed to think ourselves as good as anybody in point of birth and standing. In fact we Greeks are not a little exclusive, and it is a blow to be told that we are ourselves outside the social pale. But for you, I assure you I haven't a feeling that is not all friendship. I don't draw back from a single word of what I said about my sister. Still we must consider; and of course, before all things, she must know."
"Yes, she must know," replied Scipio. "Of course I have said nothing. She does not know—so far at least as anything that I have said is concerned—that I love her."
"Well," said Cleanor, "we will leave that then for the present. Now listen to what I have been thinking about myself and my own future. I am in love, too, and you have seen the lady. Can you guess who it is?"