"A hundred years from now should anyone break open our gilded tomb, he will find Melicent to be no more admirable than Demetrios. One skull is like another, and is as lightly split with a mattock. You will be as ugly as I, and nobody will be thinking of your eyes and hair. Hail, rain and dew will drench us both impartially when I lie at your side, as I intend to do, for a hundred years and yet another hundred years. You need not frown, for what will it matter a hundred years from now?
"Melicent, I offer love and a life that derides the folly of all other manners of living; and even if you deny me, what will it matter a hundred years from now?"
His face was contorted, his speech had fervent bitterness, for even while he wooed this woman the man internally was raging over his own infatuation.
And Melicent answered:
"There can be no question of love between us, seignior. You purchased my body. My body is at your disposal under God's will."
Demetrios sneered, his ardours cooled. He said, "I have already told you, my girl, I do not care for that which can be purchased."
In such fashion Melicent abode among these odious persons as a lily which is rooted in mire. She was a prisoner always, and when Demetrios came to Nacumera—which fell about irregularly, for now arose much fighting between the Christians and the pagans—a gem which he uncased, admired, curtly exulted in, and then, jeering at those hot wishes in his heart, locked up untouched when he went back to warfare.
To her the man was uniformly kind, if with a sort of sneer she could not understand; and he pillaged an infinity of Genoese and Venetian ships—which were notoriously the richest laden—of jewels, veils, silks, furs, embroideries and figured stuffs, wherewith to enhance the comeliness of Melicent. It seemed an all-engulfing madness with this despot daily to aggravate his fierce desire of her, to nurture his obsession, so that he might glory in the consciousness of treading down no puny adversary.
Pride spurred him on as witches ride their dupes to a foreknown destruction. "Let us have patience," he would say.
Meanwhile his other wives peered from screened alcoves at these two and duly hated Melicent. "Let us have patience!" they said, also, but with a meaning that was more sinister.