“Why call them evil, princess? My friends all believe me dead. Can they mourn for me forever? They can forget me, alas! more easily than I in my lonesomeness can forget them.”
“You are very lonely?”—the hand that drew the buckle worked slowly. How soft it was, how delicately the Nile sun had tinted it!
“Do you say you have no friends? None? Not in Sardis? Not among the Persians?”
“I said not that, dear lady,—but when can a man have more than one native country?—and mine is Attica, and Attica is far away.”
“And you can never have another? Can new friendships never take the place of those that lie forever dead?”
“I do not know.”
“Ah, believe, new home, new friends, new love, are more than possible, will you but open your heart to suffer them.”
The voice both thrilled and trembled now, then suddenly ceased. The colour sprang into Roxana’s forehead. Glaucon bowed and kissed her hand. It seemed to rise to his lips very willingly.
“I thank you for your fair hopes. Farewell.” That was all he said, but as he went forth from Roxana’s presence, the pang of the tidings brought by the Carian seemed less keen.
* * * * * * *