“Well,” Phyllis asked, “how does it feel to have everything you want?”
“It feels,” Felix said, “unreal—disturbing. It can’t be true. Do you remember the story of Polycrates?”
“No,” said Phyllis.
“Herodotus tells about it—and I was thinking about it only today, and I made up a little rhyme about it. I’ll tell you the story....”
2
Phyllis, sitting on the floor, with her coffee beside her, was looking up at him with eager eyes, eyes full of pride greater even than Rose-Ann’s. Rose-Ann was a realist. She knew all this did not amount to so much. This story was addressed to Phyllis. Rose-Ann, reclining on the settle, seemed a little outside the circle of its intention, someone accidentally looking on.
“He was a Persian king—very rich, very powerful, very happy. And there came to visit him a Greek philosopher. The Persian king asked him, ‘What is the use of philosophy?’ And the Greek philosopher answered. ‘It serves to reconcile us to the unhappiness of our lot.’ ‘Then what use is it to me?’ the king asked. ‘I am not unhappy. I am the happiest of mortals.’ ‘Yes,’ said the philosopher, ‘you are too happy. You had better beware!’ ‘Of What?’ asked the king. ‘Of the jealousy of the gods,’ said the philosopher.
“That sounded reasonable enough to the king. He had nothing to fear from men; but the gods—they might well be jealous of him. ‘What shall I do to appease their wrath?’ he asked.
“Take the most precious thing you own, and throw it into the sea!” was the advice of the philosopher.
“Now the king had a certain ring, which at the beginning of his reign he had taken from the hand of a conquered monarch, and which he had always cherished as the symbol of his victorious career. It seemed to him the most precious of all his possessions, and so he went and threw it into the sea.