“But you can not compel me,” she replied, firmly, “to change my mind as to what is seemly,” and the courage which failed her if she met a spider, but which stood by her in serious danger as a faithful ally, made her perfectly steadfast as she eagerly added: “Not an hour since you promised me that so long as I remained with you I should need no other protector, and might count on your gratitude. But those were mere words, for, when I besought you to grant me some repose, you scorned my very reasonable request, and roughly ordered me to remain and attend on you.”
At this Caesar laughed aloud.
“Just so! You are a woman, and like all the rest. You are sweet and gentle only so long as you have your own way.”
“No, indeed,” cried Melissa, and her eyes filled with tears. “I only look further than from one hour to the next. If I should sacrifice what I think right, merely to come and go at my own will, I should soon be not only miserable myself, but the object of your contempt.”
Overcome by irresistible distress, she broke into loud sobs; but Caracalla, with a furious stamp of his foot, exclaimed:
“No tears! I can not, I will not see you weep. Can any harm come to you? Nothing but good; nothing but the best of happiness do I propose for you. By Apollo and Zeus, that is the truth! Till now you have been unlike other women, but when you behave like them, you shall—I swear it—you shall feel which of us two is the stronger!”
He roughly snatched her hand away from her face and thereby achieved his end, for her indignation at being thus touched by a man’s brutal hand gave Melissa strength to suppress her sobs. Only her wet cheeks showed what a flood of tears she had shed, as, almost beside herself with anger, she exclaimed:
“Let my hand go! Shame on the man who insults a defenseless girl! You swear! Then I, too, may take an oath, and, by the head of my mother, you shall never see me again excepting as a corpse, if you ever attempt violence! You are Caesar—you are the stronger. Who ever doubted it? But you will never compel me to a vile action, not if you could inflict a thousand deaths on me instead of one!”
Caracalla, without a word, had released her hand and was staring at her in amazement.
A woman, and so gentle a woman, defying him as no man would have dared to do!