Melitta uttered a cry.
“She is frightened,” Chimairis went on. “But this concerns neither her nor me. Events must come to pass, since we cannot prevent them. From before your birth your destiny was certain. Go away. I shall say no more.”
She let his hand drop.
CHAPTER III
IMMORTAL LOVE AND MORTAL DEATH
“A woman’s blood. Afterwards the blood of another woman. Afterwards thine; but a little later.”
Demetrios repeated these words as he walked and a vague belief in them oppressed him with sadness. He had never believed in oracles drawn from the bodies of victims or from the movements of the planets. Such affinities seemed to him much too problematic. But the complex lines of the hand had of themselves a horoscopic aspect which was entirely individual and which he regarded with uneasiness. Thus the prediction remained in his mind.
He, too, gazed at the palm of his left hand where his life was displayed in mysterious and ineffaceable lines. He saw the signs without being able to understand their meaning, and passing his hand across his eyes he changed the subject of his meditation.
Chrysis, Chrysis, Chrysis.