He did not speak nor did he look at her. But had he been a strong man armed, he would have fled that magician-haunted garden. He would have left her then, he would never have looked on her again.
"... Rather terrible." In an odd crescendo those words fell again from the lips of Athena. "Edward thinks so. But it's an impertinence, isn't it? Except that some lives are the property of others ... of the race. You are not offended?"
"No," he said. And then feeling that it might have the sound of yes, he gathered defiantly all that remained of his will. "My life has not been at all like what you and Mr. Ambrose think. It has been just hell."
"That is exactly what we imagined it had been," said Athena, with divine simplicity. "And perhaps that is why"—her eyes were strangely magnetic—"Edward and I have willed it that your life to come..."
A surge of wild blood suddenly darkened the wonderful lamp of Aladdin in the right-hand corner of his brain.
"... shall be crowned with more than thorns."
She seemed almost to shiver.
"I beg your pardon," she said, suddenly applying the curb of a powerful will. "It is impertinence. But there is always something about this old garden which seems to carry one beyond oneself. It was wrong to come."
"Don't say that...." The Sailor hardly knew that he was speaking. "We are running a risk ... but ... but it's worth it. Let us sit on that seat a minute. Shall we?"
"Yes, and wait for Silvia." She was using the curb with a force that was almost brutal, as many a Pridmore and many a Colthurst had used it before her.