Then she achieved her one Pythian act: She really fainted quite away.
CHAPTER XXV
BITTER CONSEQUENCES
Day after day Nikander came to the Pythian House to inquire after his daughter.
“She has recovered,” they told him. “She eats once more; but there is upon her the apathy that follows the utterance.”
“What does she do?”
“Gazes for hours at nothing,” was the reply. “The usual thing. Though it is not usual that the apathy come so soon. She has gone but once to the tripod. Aristonikè now, not so strong a girl was she, but she went many a time under the ecstasy before this apathy attacked her.”
Nikander went home with heavy heart. He dared not tell Melantho his anxiety. Melantho’s way was to increase trouble by bewailing it. And Theria was but one of his deep anxieties.
His two sons these days seemed to have constant business in which they gave Nikander no part. This was natural for Lycophron. He was wild and loose-living. It would be a sorry day for him if he had to tell his father all his doings. But of late he and Dryas had become very intimate. From morning to night they were together. Even when in other company, Nikander saw glances pass between them. Lycophron was the worst possible example for a soft, gentle boy like Dryas. Yet Nikander did not like to break the brotherly tie. He still loved his eldest son.
Meanwhile, of course, Theria’s ailment was far different from what Nikander supposed.