No, she could not! Less cruel far was the old sacrifice at Aulis. Iphigenia might well bow to her father’s awful decision while her soul was unscourged by the scorpion whips of such degradation. The fire in her brain and the burn of hot dry eyelids kept her awake all night, pursued by terrible images of an unholy future, and her first thought, when the dawn touched light upon the window-panes, was to seek her father and intercept him before he left the Embassy. She knew he purposed going out early, intending to add to his notes at the University library, for the German meeting.
“Father,” she cried, in a voice of resolution he was quick to feel there was no shaking, “I must leave this house at once. You will go and make my excuses to the baron, while I will knock at the baroness’ door.”
“What has happened, child? You look disturbed and ill,” Selaka exclaimed, in wonderment.
“I will tell you when we are gone,” she said, growing whiter at the prospect of giving voice to the night’s sufferings. “Go now, dear father, and wait for me in the courtyard.”
“I did believe my daughter was not capricious.”
“Papa,” she pleaded, childishly, “love me a little, be kind to me. Do what I ask.”
Selaka mused half-angrily, as he went in search of the baron, so thoroughly mystified that he almost apprehended being unfitted for learned society that morning:
“Ah, why are these explosive engines, known as daughters, born to poor harassed man? We idly propagate them as candles to attract the moths around us; to dismay us with their flutter and impertinent importunities;—magnets to attract violent impulses, and run them cantering in rivalry.”
Wrapped up in his own vexed thoughts, he had long been perceived by Reineke at the German school before he recognised the fatal Turk. He bowed coldly, flushed perceptibly under the eyes. The fellow was a man to be proud of, he felt, a man in a million, an ideal son-in-law, and hotly rebuked himself for thinking it. He moved as far away from Reineke as possible, and fell into eager conversation with a Russian professor.
The Russian informed him that the French school had curtly declined to attend, with the added discourtesy of offering no excuse whatsoever.