Theria’s eyes widened with delight.
“You don’t think me foolish to read my father’s books?”
“Books!” Here the boy was puzzled. “Why should you read books? Poems are to sing, not to read.”
“Oh, I sing them, too,” laughed Theria. “Far back in the storeroom, when nobody can hear, I sing them. I have to make up the tunes.”
“I wish I could hear you; oh, I wish I could hear you.”
That any one should care for what she did! No praise could be sweeter, no joy. So absorbed were they both that they did not hear the voices calling through the house, “Sophocles! Sophocles!” until the searchers had entered the open door—that door which should always be closed.
“Eleutheria,” came her father’s voice, sterner than she had ever heard it. “The meaning of this! By Hermes, I must know.”
The two turned in confusion.
“Whatever made you think you could bring a stranger here into the inner court? How long have you been together?”
Theria answered none of his questions. She faced him, her eyes black lakes of astonishment. So intense a mood could not break at once.