He looked at her strangely; suddenly pushed aside the robe from her shoulders and laid his hands on her soft bare flesh.
"Ay, she's fair enough!" he muttered. "If I could but lash that torpid soul of hers to life—teach her what all other women in the world know by nature and instinct! For if she have the beauty of the immortal women, without the warm spirit of sex behind it, it will avail her nothing. Passionless, she can never inspire passion. To see her mated to him—his child in her arms—a son—a son!—who should redeem for me all the bitterness and the disappointment she hath brought—would not that be better than nothing?"
His hands on her shoulders shook. She glanced up at him under her lids,—a strange glance into which there flashed something that died as it came. Her eyes were dilated, but she made no motion to push his hands from her.
"Could she win him?" Eudemius's voice was not above a whisper, yet it was tense with restrained excitement. Drops of sweat beaded his forehead; the cords of his neck were taut. "Varia, dost know, child, what thou art?"
"Ay," she answered quietly. "A fool. Thou hast said it."
Eudemius gave an exclamation of bitter impatience.
"Fool—yes, and child and woman as well. Hast thou never thought what it might be to become as other women are? To know the kiss of a man's lips on thine—to feel his arms about thee—to listen to the tale of love that is told to all but thee—"
"Tale!" said Varia, catching at the word. "Oh, I have heard tales—wonderful tales, more wonderful than any that ever were told before! And I have known the kiss of a man's lips on mine; and I have felt a man's arms about me!"
Eudemius gripped her slender shoulders, staring at her, and his face worked. Then he flung her away from him.
"Thou poor fool!" he said in contemptuous pity. He clenched his hands and strode up and down before the couch. "Oh, if I could but waken thee—if I could but waken thee! I'd use thee, poor tool as thou art—I'd make thee, a worthless pawn, queen to play my game for me! Thou art mine, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, to do with as I will. Sometimes my hands itch to shake into thee the sense thou lackest—or else to shake the useless life out of thee."