“Years increase. I shan’t live long. We are childless. I will provide for you in my will by giving you in marriage to Hyperphon.”[3]
“Hyperphon!” screamed the virago, “Hyperphon the beggarly hunchback, the laughing-stock of Athens! O Mother Hera!—but I see the villain’s aim. You are weary of me. Then divorce me like an honourable man. Send me back to Polus my dear brother. Ah, you sheep, you are silent! You think of the two-minæ dowry you must then refund. Woe is me! I’ll go to the King Archon. I’ll charge you with gross abuse. The jury will condemn you. There’ll be fines, fetters, stocks, prison—”
“Peace,” groaned Phormio, terrified at the Gorgon, “I only thought—”
“How dared you think? What permitted—”
“Good evening, sweet sister and Phormio!” The salutation came from Polus, who with Clearchus had approached unheralded. Lampaxo smoothed her ruffled feathers. Phormio stifled his sorrows. Dromo, the half-starved slave-boy, brought a pot of thin wine to his betters. The short southern twilight was swiftly passing into night. Groups of young men wandered past, bound homeward from the Cynosarges, the Academy, or some other well-loved gym[pg 76]nasium. In an hour the streets would be dark and still, except for a belated guest going to his banquet, a Scythian constable, or perhaps a cloak thief. For your Athenian, when he had no supper invitation, went to bed early and rose early, loving the sunlight far better than the flicker of his uncertain lamps.
“And did the jury vote ‘guilty’?” was Phormio’s first question of his brother-in-law.
“We were patriotically united. There were barely any white beans for acquittal in the urn. The scoundrelly grain-dealer is stripped of all he possesses and sent away to beg in exile. A noble service to Athens!”
“Despite the evidence,” murmured Clearchus; but Lampaxo’s shrill voice answered her brother:—
“It’s my opinion you jurors should look into a case directly opposite this house. Spies, I say, Persian spies.”
“Spies!” cried Polus, leaping up as from a coal; “why, Phormio, haven’t you denounced them? It’s compounding with treason even to fail to report—”