And always, though his speech was pleasant, as he spoke he moved away, sidling, with a certain stealthiness, a glinting of his narrow eyes from side to side. Nicanor became interested, and followed a pace. The girl stared at him with desperate dumb eyes.
"Thou hast made a good purchase," he said carelessly, and thought that for an instant the other showed his teeth.
"Not for myself!" Valerius said humbly. Whether it suited him, for motives of his own, to play the worthy poor man, Nicanor could not tell. "I but act on behalf of my lord Eudemius, of the great white villa off the Noviomagus road, this side of Londinium—hey, now! by all the furies, what is this?"
For the gray-faced girl, with hunted eyes, flung herself suddenly from his hand, crying in a hoarse croak of a voice:
"Not for him! Not for the lord Eudemius, the Torturer! I am not bought for him!"
Again Nicanor found himself staring, for there was fear and anguish in her voice such as he had never heard in human tones. And as they looked at her in amazement, she rocked from side to side, sobbing without tears, and whispering keenly:
"Not for him! Ah, dear Christ in heaven! not for him!"
"And why not?" Valerius demanded. "What hast thou against him that his name sends thee squealing—"
"What against him?" the girl said fiercely. "He tortures—he mutilates—he strips flesh from living bones, and laughs! Let a slave raise an eyelid in his presence, and he were better dead. Ay, I know—I know! I will not go to him! I will drown—choke—hang myself first!"
She glared around her as though to seek deliverance where none was. Valerius shook her roughly by the arm.