She ran quickly up the stair to the women’s apartments—no doubt to cry alone, and Medon, seizing his opportunity, fairly fled with his charge from the house.
Medon carried the little boy’s lyre and very peacefully they walked along the road toward the Precinct. They had gone some distance when Medon heard running steps behind him, and, turning, saw to his amazement Theria as if on wings, her black hair streaming behind, her chubby arms clasping a lyre.
“I’m going!” she cried. “I will; I will!”
And then it was that Medon had to carry back along the road a strange wild creature that fought and kicked and bit and clutched at his hair.
The neighbours hearing the cries ran out of their houses and shook their heads at Nikander’s terrible child. Poor Medon was like to drop into the earth for shame. Yet amid all the tumult he kept thinking of a mountain stream which had been dammed back but which one day broke through and rushed away—a mighty flood.
Nikander’s alarmed family—wife, slaves, and all—met them at the door.
“Now for what do the gods punish me?” cried poor Melantho, “that I should have such a child! Look at her eyes. She is beside herself. Baltè, hold her!”
But as Medon set down the little raging tumult old Baltè let her escape. Up the stairs she flew, her voice like a clarion.
“Leave her be, dear mistress,” pleaded wise old Baltè. “Remember, she is a twin child and it does grieve her sore to be separate from her twin.”
In the farthest room of the house Theria found refuge and slammed the door. Here she threw herself face downward and beat the floor with her fists; yes, and kicked, too, as her childish grief surged to and fro within her. Her strength spent itself at last and she fell to sobbing, suffering now as she had not done amid the curious enjoyment of loud woe.