"I know," Callistion said. "All women know. Ah, we know many things—"
She reached with her free arm across the body of Diophantus and presently dropped a stone into the pool. She said:
"See how the water ripples. There is now not any reflection of my poor face or of your beauty. All is as wavering as a man's heart…. And now your beauty is regathering like coloured mists. Yet I have other stones."
"Oh, and the will to use them!" said Dame Melicent.
"For this bright thieving beauty is not any longer yours. It is mine now, to do with as I may elect—as yesterday it was the plaything of Demetrios…. Why, no! I think I shall not kill you. I have at hand three very cunning Cheylas—the men who carve and reshape children into such droll monsters. They cannot change your eyes, they tell me. That is a pity, but I can have one plucked out. Then I shall watch my Cheylas as they widen your mouth from ear to ear, take out the cartilage from your nose, wither your hair till it will always be like rotted hay, and turn your skin—which is like velvet now—the colour of baked mud. They will as deftly strip you of that beauty which has robbed me as I pluck up this blade of grass…. Oh, they will make you the most hideous of living things, they assure me. Otherwise, as they agree, I shall kill them. This done, you may go freely to your lover. I fear, though, lest you may not love him as I loved Demetrios."
And Melicent said nothing.
"For all we women know, my sister, our appointed curse. To love the man, and to know the man loves just the lips and eyes Youth lends to us—oho, for such a little while! Yes, it is cruel. And therefore we are cruel—always in thought and, when occasion offers, in the deed."
And Melicent said nothing. For of that mutual love she shared with Perion, so high and splendid that it made of grief a music, and wrung a new sustainment out of every cross, as men get cordials of bitter herbs, she knew there was no comprehension here.
26.
How Men Ordered Matters