She made no reply to this remark, but her whole presence expressed discomfort in his determination to remain.
"Heathen Hecate ought to get him in these wilds for forcing that cruel journey on you last night, when you were so weary and sad! There was no good in it. He wanted simply to get you away from me! Let us hope that Titus has got him for his museum by this time, and be at ease!"
She raised her head and reproach flashed through the meshes of her veil.
"Momus is a good man," she said.
"He can not be," he insisted. "Have I not set forth his iniquities even now?"
"It was a short task," she maintained. "But time is not long enough to count his virtues."
"I can spend time better," he declared.
He saw her silken brows lower in a spirited frown and he was glad. She was showing some other feeling than that dead level of unhappiness that had possessed her from the first moment he had seen her. His was not the heart contented to go astray after a tear. Men fall in search of joy.
"Momus is carrying a burden under which more brilliant men would falter," she averred. "I am beyond reckoning his debtor!"
"Since he has shifted that sweet burden for a time on my shoulders, I will forgive him for his looks. If he will stay away, I'll be his debtor further. But enough of Momus! I came to ask after your health, when your long journey by night is done."