'Be gracious by one little word, Diadyomene. Why never yet will you call me by my name?'
'Your name? No, 'tis an ill-made name. Put it away and bear another that I will choose.'
'I could not. Yet what would you choose?'
'Diadyomenos, may be!' she said softly, smiling.
The honour of the consort name caught his breath.
'But I could not; not even for that could I lay aside the name I had in baptism.'
'Baptism ever!' she frowned. 'Inadvertently did I utter Diadyomenos. Asleep, I had dreamed—of you—enfranchised.'
From scorn to regret she modulated, and his blood sang to the dominant close.
She strained to dislocate sleep, on her back-thrown head planting both hands. Her fingers, with careless grip, encountered the pearls; they sprang scattering, and her dark hair drifted down. With languid indifference she loosened and fingered the length of soft splendours; another lustrous morsel flew and skipped to the boy's feet. Covetous longing fastened upon it, not for its rare beauty, its immense value. A thing that had passed through her hands and lain in her hair was to him beyond price; and yet he forbore sternly to seek after possession, because an honest scruple would not allow that an orient pearl could come to his hands but by magic purveyance.
'If a name were to seek for me?' she was pleased to inquire, on the watch for colour which sprang when her words were gracious.