"Ay, save at night. I sleep alone," said Varia.
Eudemius poured wine from the silver pitcher and drank it. Outside, the rain was falling with a gentle dripping. The thunder had died; the breeze, cooler, came laden with damp earthy smells. Varia went to the window and knelt beside it, leaning out into the warm darkness. Her father's eyes followed her. But if Varia's mood had changed, his was not to be shaken off so lightly. He sat down on the couch, wiping his forehead free from sweat. Here, he was close enough to touch her, and he drew her back from the window so that she leaned against the couch and his knee.
"Varia," he said, moved by an impulse born of what had gone before, "dost love thy father?"
"Nay," said Varia, simply. "Why should I, my lord?"
"True," said Eudemius. "Why shouldst thou?"
Varia leaned her elbows on his knee, looking up at him with her chin on her hands. Her attitude held the frank fearlessness of a child.
"Does my lord father love me?" she asked, and smiled up at him. Something within him warned Eudemius to honesty.
"Nay, Varia," he said gently, and put a hand on her dark soft hair. "Thy father hath never loved thee."
Varia suddenly rested her cheek against his other hand.
"Poor father!" she murmured, as though he were somehow deserving of all sympathy for this, "Didst ever wish that I had not been born?"