"Why should I have made you uneasy beforehand? Now that your destiny is drawing near, I warn you."
"Thank you,—I will be careful. In former times I should not have listened to such a warning, but now that I love Sappho, I feel as if my life were not so much my own to do what I like with, as it used to be."
"I understand this feeling . . ."
"You understand it? Then Araspes was right? You don't deny?"
"A mere dream without any hope of fulfilment."
"But what woman could refuse you?"
"Refuse!"
"I don't understand you. Do you mean to say that you—the boldest sportsman, the strongest wrestler—the wisest of all the young Persians —that you, Darius, are afraid of a woman?"
"Bartja, may I tell you more, than I would tell even to my own father?"
"Yes."