Ste. A patient score.
So long your daughter has been mine, so long
Has mine been yours.
Pel. Like flower upon a stalk
Long nursed and tended, comes the end upon
This day of budding peace. You've had no whiff,
No hint untoward, that what we did had best
Been left undone?
Ste. Sir, what I do, I do!
When we changed babes not past their cradle sleep,
My mind then glossed the act with comment fair
As our unfructured hope. So does it still.
By Nestor, though I'm thitherward of prime,
There's none will say that with accreted years
I moult sagacity!
Pel. Eh, so! 'Twas well.
I've never doubted it. Here have I reared
Your Phania, Spartan-thewed, who now shall home
With Athens' gentle nurture in her veins
To hither yearn in blood of every son
She bears to Sparta. And you my Pyrrha bring
Back to her land to live a Spartan dame
Among Athenian mothers. So we feed
The unity we dream on,—quicken time,
Foresued, to give our tousing, touchy States
One civic heart.
Ste. Has Sachinessa kept
A secret tongue?
Pel. A nut not closer sits
About its kernel. And your wife, my friend?
What of Archippe? Did she hold for long
Against the exchange?
Ste. She did. Nor ever learned
To love your Pyrrha. For that cause,—and that
Our even trust might move with even faith,
Nor odds of grace to you,—I've stood her guard,
And made her comrade where a son might claim
The dearest post.
Pel. Good thanks, my Stesilaus.
From your wife's audit I'd not brush a doit,
But to the credit of my dame can set
A fairer sum. Æneas' curlèd lad
Lay not more dearly in his Dido's lap
Than your sweet Phania in the swaddling love
Of Sachinessa. Ay, she'll swear me now
That not to gain her own will she give up
Her foster darling.
Ste. Humph!
Pel. The little duck!
She has so chucked herself into my heart
'Twill put me sad about to oust her.