Then Melicent kissed pitiable lips which would not ever sneer again, and, rising, passed into the Women's Garden, proudly and unafraid.
Ahasuerus shrugged so patiently that she was half afraid. Then, as a cloud passes, she saw that all further buffetings would of necessity be trivial.
For Perion, as she now knew, was very near to her—single of purpose, clean of hands, and filled with such a love as thrilled her with delicious fears of her own poor unworthiness.
25.
How Women Talked Together
Dame Melicent walked proudly through the Women's Garden, and presently entered a grove of orange trees, the most of which were at this season about their flowering. In this place was an artificial pool by which the trees were nourished. On its embankment sprawled the body of young Diophantus, a child of some ten years of age, Demetrios' son by Tryphera. Orestes had strangled Diophantus in order that there might be no rival to Orestes' claims. The lad lay on his back, and his left arm hung elbow-deep in the water, which swayed it gently.
Callistion sat beside the corpse and stroked its limp right hand. She had hated the boy throughout his brief and merry life. She thought now of his likeness to Demetrios.
She raised toward Melicent the dilated eyes of one who has just come from a dark place. Callistion said:
"And so Demetrios is dead. I thought I would be glad when I said that.
Hah, it is strange I am not glad."
She rose, as though with hard effort, as a decrepit person might have done. You saw that she was dressed in a long gown of black, pleated to the knees, having no clasp or girdle, and bare of any ornamentation except a gold star on each breast.