“Who is that?” he whispered sharply. “Do you know them?”
She followed his look.
“Baltè!” she spoke almost with a sob. “And Dryas, my brother.” Then she collected her thoughts and began to talk quickly.
“The jewels! I have not told you how to get them. There is a little street beside Nikander’s house. And a window in the house that side. Come at twilight. I will throw them down to you.”
She had hardly said the last word when the slave disappeared among the bushes. Then she forgot him. Dryas was there with his scorn, Baltè with her tears. She had to face both.
CHAPTER XV
THE SHATTERED CUP
Bitterness and confusion were Theria’s portion when she reached home. Melantho was ill from anxiety and stormed alternately at Theria for her misdeed and at poor Baltè for not taking better care of her. Dryas was very superior and very wrathful. The slaves whisked hither and yon, some delighted with the fuss, others scared as to which way the storm might strike. Lycophron treated everything with amused scorn, whether of Theria or her tormentors could not be told. Nikander was away.
“But the whipping he’ll give you when he comes,” declared Melantho, “will make that other whipping seem a caress.”
Theria waited in a dumb terror. Not of the whipping, but of her own reaction to it. She would fight back. Oh, the disgrace of that! Deeper than all was the fear of losing the last of her father’s love.