“It has pleased my father, sir,” she spoke with frigid dignity, “to tell me that you are some day perchance to be my husband. The fulfilment lies with the gods. But to-day the strategus Democrates knows our customs too well to thrust himself upon an Attic gentlewoman who finds herself alone save for one servant.”
“Ah, kyria; pardon the word, it’s overcold; makaira, I’d say more gladly,” Democrates was marvellously at his ease despite her frowns, “your noble father will take nothing amiss if I ask you to sit again that we may talk together.”
“I do not think so.” Hermione drew herself up at full height. But Democrates deliberately placed himself in the path up the hillside. To have run toward the water seemed folly. She could expect no help from Cleopis, who would hardly oppose a man soon probably to be her master. As the less of evils, Hermione did not indeed sit as desired, but stood facing her unloved lover and hearkening.
“How long I’ve desired this instant!” Democrates looked as if he might seize her hands to kiss them, but she thrust [pg 355]them behind her. “I know you hate me bitterly because, touching your late husband, I did my duty.”
“Your duty?” Nestor’s eloquence was in her incredulous echo.
“If I have pained you beyond telling, do you think my act was a pleasant one for me? A bosom friend to ruin, the most sacred bonds to sever, last and not least, to give infinite sorrow to her I love?”
“I hardly understand.”
Democrates drew a step nearer.
“Ah! Hera, Artemis, Aphrodite the Golden—by what name shall I call my goddess?” Hermione drew back a step. There was danger in his eyes. “I have loved you, loved you long. Before Glaucon took you in marriage I loved you. But Eros and Hymen hearkened to his prayers, not mine. You became his bride. I wore a bright face at your wedding. You remember I was Glaucon’s groomsman, and rode beside you in the bridal car. You loved him, he seemed worthy of you. Therefore I trod my own grief down into my heart, and rejoiced with my friends. But to cease loving you I could not. Truly they say Eros is the strongest god, and pitiless—do not the poets say bloody Ares begat him—”
“Spare me mythologies,” interposed Hermione, with another step back.