Her lips parted as if in fear.
“I have offered you in marriage,” said Nikander, “to Timon for his eldest son Theras. Timon has accepted. I am delighted with the alliance and I shall have the betrothal very soon.”
With a low cry the girl crouched upon the floor, clasping his knees.
“Oh, no, Father, no,” she pleaded. “You are not so angry with me as that. Don’t send me away! Don’t send me away!”
He took her hands gently and lifted her—put his arm about her pitifully trembling shoulders.
“What a strange child. What a strange, foolish child. All maidens look forward to marriage. It is their right.”
“But not I, Father, not I!”
“You must do so. Of course it will be strange at first. Brides are often timid, but you are not lacking in courage. Theria, your constant dwelling upon thoughts which are for men makes you cold toward what is your business in life—which is marriage and childbearing. You are mature in things not for you and in all the rest an undeveloped child.”
This brutal statement was a nearer reading of Theria’s character than Nikander himself guessed. An unevenness of development was hers—a kind of mental hobbledehoy which is not infrequent in high-bred youngsters. Nay, more than this: An actual shrinking purity was the concomitant of her poetic gift. Other girls of Delphi discussed the facts of marriage with primitive frankness and looked forward to marriage as the one event to break monotony. Theria never spoke of it, and thought of it almost with horror—the strange house, the strange man, the mysteries from which she hid her eyes.