He stopped before her, breathless with thwarted passion that time after time dashed itself like surge against the inexorable rock of Circumstance, to fall back baffled and beaten.
"Tell me!" he said, in a voice grown suddenly calm. "Child o' mine, dost think that thou couldst win a man?"
It was a strange question from father to child, but then he did not see it so. And Varia, looking at him, made a strange answer.
"I have won a man!" she said, and her voice was slow and haunting. "Body and soul I have won him; he is mine for all time to come, to do with as I will. I am a fool, but I have done this thing, and I think—" She stopped, and her voice changed and grew scornful—"I think it is but a little thing to do!"
Eudemius stared at her.
"Thou hast—" he whispered, and moistened his lips with a dry tongue. "Say that again, girl! Thou hast—Is this thy raving? Nay, tell me, who is the man?"
But another mood was on Varia. She laughed, like a rippling brook.
"He hath no name!" she said merrily. "No name—nothing; for he is nothing! He comes in the clouds and in the storms and in the moonlight, and whispers strange things which none may hear but I. His voice is the wind and his words are the rustle of the leaves, and his speech is golden as flame; and oh, the tales he hath told to me!"
Eudemius laughed shortly.
"At first I even thought—" he muttered, and broke off. "Child, are thy women always with thee?"