Arethusa

by F. Marion Crawford

What should he do with her? He was passionate rather than material or pleasure-loving; he was consequently an optimist and an idealist where women were concerned, and was full of a vague belief in the romantic side of love. He could no more really love a slave-girl than he could have loved a hired maid, though she might be beautiful beyond comparison, for he was incapable of attaching himself to beauty alone. Only his equal could be his mate, and he never could care long or truly for any creature that was less. At twenty, the youth in him would have boiled up and over for a week, or a month; but he was verging on thirty, his thirty years that had been crammed with the deeds of many a daring man's whole life-time, and his nature had hardened in a nobler mould than his early youth had promised. He would not make a plaything of any woman now; and since he would not, he wondered what he should do with Zoë, now that she was his.

In this mood of uncertainty he rose to leave her, more or less resolved not to see her again until he had come to some conclusion as to her future; for in spite of all he still felt himself attracted to her, and the line of her cheek and throat when her face was half-turned away was of exquisite beauty. Standing beside her for a moment, he knew that if ever again in his life he stooped to take a woman for a toy, lovelessly, stupidly, contemptibly, the plaything would be this Arethusa whom he had bought of a scoundrelly Bokharian dealer.

'Good-night,' he said, looking down into her upturned eyes. 'If you need anything, if you want anything, send for Omobono, and you shall have it. Good-night, Arethusa.'

It was the first time he had called her by her name, as he knew it. He did not even hold out his hand. She looked up steadily.

'What shall you do with me?' she asked, very anxiously, surprised by his sudden leave-taking.

She was so lovely then that he felt a despicable impulse to take her into his arms, just for her loveliness, and close her sad eyes with kisses. Instead, he shook his head and turned away.

'I do not know,' he said, half-aloud. He reached the door. 'I do not know,' he repeated, as if the problem were very hard to solve; and he went out, not turning back to look at her.

Thus ended the first hour the slave spent with her master; and when he was gone she felt suddenly exhausted, as if she had fought with her hands; and strangely enough she knew all at once that she was weak from want of food, and that the thought of eating no longer disgusted her. Half-ashamed of herself, she glanced at the door through which Zeno had disappeared, as if she thought he might come back, and listened, as though expecting his footstep. Then, not seeing or hearing anything, she began to eat quickly, and almost ravenously, as if she were doing something to be a little ashamed of, and she hoped that the maids would not come in and see her.

She was soon satisfied, for it had been a nervous craving rather than anything else, and every woman who reads these lines knows precisely how Zoë felt, or will know one of these days; for in all that belongs to the instinctive side of life, women are much more alike than men are; whereas, because they are not led, pushed, or dragged through one average course of teaching, as most men are, but are left to think and above all, to guess at truth for themselves, they are much more unlike in their way of looking at things. This also is the reason why many gifted men and a good many really learned ones would rather talk to women than to men; for among men they hear the same things everlastingly, but women always have something new to say, which is flattering, pleasant, amusing, or irritating—perhaps, as they choose. Women have also a sort of mock-humble, wholly appealing way of asking the great man how it is possible that he can really care to talk with a poor, ignorant, little woman, when he might be engaged in a memorable conversation with the other great man, who is talking to the other poor, ignorant little woman with lovely eyes, on the other side of the room. In this way we learn that life is full of contradictions.

Zoë slept ten hours without dreaming, and awoke refreshed and rested, to wonder presently why her mood had changed so much. But Zeno was restless in the night, and dissatisfied with himself and with what he had done; when he lay awake he found fault with his impulsive action, but when he fell asleep for half-an-hour Zoë haunted his dreams. More than once he got up and walked barefoot on the marble mosaic pavement of his room, and he threw open the shutters and looked out. The night was calm and clear, and the air was almost wintry. To the left of Pera's towering outline the northern constellations shone bright and cold. Each time he looked he wondered at the slow motion of the Bear; the seven stars hung above the Pole, for it was springtime, and they hardly seemed to have moved a handbreadth to their westward sinking in a whole hour, when he looked again. When morning came his face was a little paler than usual, and he felt that he was in a bad humour.