“Do you understand all that—Athena?” he ventured.
“Why, yes,” she said. “We are all very intelligent. It’s the wholesome life we lead and the perfection of our bodies.”
He threw back his head and laughed.
“I like you when you laugh,” she told him suddenly. “I like you to throw your head back, and the kind little crinkles round your eyes. When you are not laughing you look so tired.”
“I am tired,” he admitted; “tired and disillusioned most of the time. Perhaps it’s my unwholesome life and imperfect body——”
He watched her, glowing with unreasoning pleasure at her laugh.
“Humour, too!” he cried. “Child, you are wonderful! Tell me about yourself ... everything. I must know the magic that evolved such perfection.”
“Give me your hand,” she said. “There!... Now you can understand me better.
“There isn’t much to tell. I am seventeen, and have lived with Hellena since I was eight. There are twenty of us. She teaches us ... wonderful things. Not hideous ‘accomplishments,’ but real things that will help us—Greek and Latin, and the care of our bodies, and the worship of beauty. We all dance, and sing, and play ... and we paint, and write verse, and translate the classics, and read to each other. And we are very strong and hardy, because of our simple lives.... We can beat men at their own games, although we are so slight. We wear few clothes—nothing to restrain or disfigure us. And when we dance we don’t learn special steps; we express in ourselves whatever we are dancing—Sorrow, or Love, or Spring. See, I will do you part of our Spring Dance.”
She drew her white, dripping legs from the fountain and danced before him—a thing so light and delicate, so breeze-blown and whimsical, so altogether lovely, that his distrust of her humanity returned to him unbearably.