Maira was a good wife and loved her husband tenderly; but she was not more generous than the majority of the female sex. Deeply as Xenocles was moved, it did not occur to her to spare him. All that she had silently endured for years must be uttered.
“Now we have no daughter,” she said, as a sort of preamble.
Xenocles was silent, the muscles around his mouth twitched convulsively.
A pause ensued. At that early hour of the morning the house was so still that the flies were heard buzzing in the sunshine on the rush carpet inside the door.
“It would have been better,” Maira continued, “if you had not always had your head filled with your plans and measurements for buildings. Whole days passed without your saying a word to Clytie or me, and if I spoke to you about anything that disturbed you, I was so harshly rebuffed that I often dared not address you. Doris the slave-girl knew ten times as much about Clytie’s affairs. By Adrasteia, it’s an easy matter to be a father, if a man considers it enough to give his daughter home and clothes and food. But, if you had had any love for your child, had you suspected what she hoped and longed for, had you known what she feared more than death—this misfortune would not have befallen us.”
Xenocles gazed at Maira as though she were a stranger. He understood that it was maternal affection which made her so strong, and at the same time dimly felt that perhaps he had some reason to reproach himself.
He bent his head.
“What is to be done?” he murmured. “Tell me, Maira. You have always been a good wife to me.”
At these simple words all Maira’s wrath vanished. She involuntarily sat down beside her husband and, as their eyes met, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“First,” she whispered, “we must conceal Clytie’s flight. Then you must—better now than later—go to Acestor and tell him that Clytie is ill and the wedding must be postponed. You can say she is delirious and no one is allowed to see her.”