Niobe wept. “Ai! woe. ‘A little longer’ and Jocasta has Procles. I can’t ask Hermione again for money. Ai! ai!”
Two round tears did not move Dion in the slightest. Niobe was sobbing, at her small wits’ end, when a voice sounded behind her.
“What’s there wrong, lass? By Zeus, but you carry a handsome child!”
Niobe glanced, and instantly stopped weeping. A young man dressed roughly as a sailor, and with long black hair and beard, had approached her, but despite dress and beard she was quite aware he was far handsomer than even Procles.
“I beg pardon, kyrie,”—she said “kyrie” by instinct,—“I’m only an honest maid. Dion is terribly extortionate.” She cast down her eyes, expecting instant succour from the susceptible seaman, but to her disgust she saw he was admiring only the babe, not herself.
“Ah! Gods and goddesses, what a beautiful child! A girl?”
“A boy,” answered Niobe, almost sullenly.
“Blessed the house in Trœzene then that can boast of such a son.”
“Oh, he’s not Trœzenian, but one of the exiles from [pg 346]Athens,” volunteered Dion, who kept all the tittle-tattle of the little city in stock along with his philtres.
“An Athenian! Praised be Athena Polias, then. I am from Athens myself. And his father?”