"Look you, this is of a far more beautiful green than any of your trinkets, I think it is as valuable also, because of its huge size. Moreover, it turns red by lamplight—red as blood. That is an admirable colour. And yet I do not value it. I think I do not value anything. So I will make you a gift of this big coloured pebble, if you desire it, because your ignorance amuses me. Most people know Demetrios is not a merchant. He does not buy and sell. That which he has he keeps, and that which he desires he takes."
The boy was all despair. He did not speak. He was very handsome as he stood in that still place where everything excepting him was red and gold.
"You do not value my poor chrysoberyl? You value your friend more? It is a page out of Theocritos—'when there were golden men of old, when friends gave love for love.' And yet I could have sworn—Come now, a wager," purred Demetrios. "Show your contempt of this bauble to be as great as mine by throwing this shiny pebble, say, into the gallery, for the next passer-by to pick up, and I will credit your sincerity. Do that and I will even name my price for Perion."
The boy obeyed him without hesitation. Turning, he saw the horrid change in the intent eyes of Demetrios, and quailed before it. But instantly that flare of passion flickered out.
Demetrios gently said:
"A bargain is a bargain. My wives are beautiful, but their caresses annoy me as much as formerly they pleased me. I have long thought it would perhaps amuse me if I possessed a Christian wife who had eyes like violets and hair like gold, and a plump white body. A man tires very soon of ebony and amber…. Procure me such a wife and I will willingly release this Perion and all his fellows who are yet alive."
"But, seignior,"—and the boy was shaken now,—"you demand of me an impossibility!"
"I am so hardy as to think not. And my reason is that a man throws from the elbow only, but a woman with her whole arm."
There fell a silence now.
"Why, look you, I deal fairly, though. Were such a woman here— Demetrios of Anatolia's guest—I verily believe I would not hinder her departure, as I might easily do. For there is not a person within many miles of this place who considers it wholesome to withstand me. Yet were this woman purchasable, I would purchase. And—if she refused—I would not hinder her departure; but very certainly I would put Perion to the Torment of the Waterdrops. It is so droll to see a man go mad before your eyes, I think that I would laugh and quite forget the woman."