“Is not my father here?” she said. “They told me he was sick and had called for me.”
Lycabetta shrugged her beautiful shoulders and her gleaming raiment rippled in little waves of changing color.
“Sick or well, living or dead, you will find no father here, nor mother neither; but I will be your sister, if you please, sweet simplicity.”
She smiled alluringly.
Perpetua looked at her with brave, quiet eyes of dislike.
“Who are you?” she asked, holding her senses well together in the presence of unsuspected danger.
Lycabetta answered her, languidly amused.
“I am everything and nothing. There are poets who rhyme me the Rose of the World. There are priests who name me the Strange Woman. I am Lycabetta.”
“Lycabetta!” Perpetua repeated the name almost unconsciously, and Lycabetta saw that it had no meaning to her ears.