‘My fee for what I have heard to-day. You are a right noble maiden, and may Freya send you a husband worthy of you, and make you the mother of kings!’
And Wulf retired with his party.
Open homage to her rival, before her very face! Pelagia felt quite inclined to hate old Wulf.
But at least he was the only traitor. The rest of the Goths agreed unanimously that Hypatia was a very foolish person, who was wasting her youth and beauty in talking to donkey-riders; and Pelagia remounted her mule, and the Goths their horses, for a triumphal procession homeward.
And yet her heart was sad, even in her triumph. Right and wrong were ideas as unknown to her as they were to hundreds of thousands in her day. As far as her own consciousness was concerned, she was as destitute of a soul as the mule on which she rode. Gifted by nature with boundless frolic and good-humour, wit and cunning, her Greek taste for the physically beautiful and graceful developed by long training, until she had become, without a rival, the most perfect pantomime, dancer, and musician who catered for the luxurious tastes of the Alexandrian theatres, she had lived since her childhood only for enjoyment and vanity, and wished for nothing more. But her new affection, or rather worship, for the huge manhood of her Gothic lover had awoke in her a new object—to keep him—to live for him—to follow him to the ends of the earth, even if he tired of her, ill-used her, despised her. And slowly, day by day, Wulf’s sneers bad awakened in her a dread that perhaps the Amal might despise her.... Why, she could not guess: but what sort of women were those Alrunas of whom Wulf sang, of whom even the Amal and his men spoke with reverence, as something nobler, not only than her, but even than themselves? And what was it which Wulf had recognised in Hypatia which had bowed the stern and coarse old warrior before her in that public homage?.... it was not difficult to say what.... But why should that make Hypatia or any one else attractive? And the poor little child of nature gazed in deep bewilderment at a crowd of new questions, as a butterfly might at the pages of the book on which it has settled, and was sad and discontented—not with herself, for was she not Pelagia the perfect?—but with these strange fancies which came into other people’s heads.—Why should not every one be as happy as they could? And who knew better than she how to be happy, and to make others happy?....
‘Look at that old monk standing on the pavement, Amalric! Why does he stare so at me? Tell him to go away.’
The person at whom she pointed, a delicate-featured old man, with a venerable white beard, seemed to hear her; for he turned with a sudden start, and then, to Pelagia’s astonishment, put his hands before his face, and burst convulsively into tears.
‘What does he mean by behaving in that way? Bring him here to me this moment! I will know!’ cried she, petulantly catching at the new object, in order to escape from her own thoughts.
In a moment a Goth had led up the weeper, who came without demur to the side of Pelagia’s mule.
‘Why were you so rude as to burst out crying in my face?’ asked she petulantly.