Daphne sprang up in the greatest excitement, and quivering with rage and indignation.
“Thou stony image,” she cried, “know that I have not yet learned—no, nor ever will learn—to obey thee, unnatural one, inhuman! I would rather wed the lowest slave in Athens than thee. Has thy hideous descent left in thee no trace of manly feeling, and no knowledge of the heart of a woman? I would rather see the whole world desolate than mingle my blood with thine!”
Thoth listened to her with undisguised astonishment, and replied to her quite calmly—
“But what more couldst thou desire? Thou shalt be treated by every one, from myself downwards, with the most obsequious honour. Thou shalt be queen of the world, and the founder of the greatest race the earth has ever borne. Surely thou hast misunderstood my meaning. Say in what I have failed.”
Daphne was somewhat soothed by the calmness of the reply, but her pride was still wounded. She resented the coldness of Thoth’s reasoning, and she replied with passion—
“What more would I have? I would have one thing only, the first and the last—love—human love.”
“And what,” said Thoth, with an appearance of intellectual interest, “is love? What more than I have promised?”
The innocence of the answer of this wisest of men disarmed Daphne.
“Thy honour and respect could no more kindle a spark of love than all the power of the ocean could kindle a little fire. Read again, if thou hast the record, the story of thy ancestor, and know that I must be loved as blindly as he loved the woman who, thou sayest, afterwards betrayed him.”
She glided up to Thoth and took his hand. It was cool and steady. She looked up in his face, but his features were unmoved and his eyes passionless.