"Yes, there is a sleeping powder in your wine. Will you drink?"
"Not yet," said the Cæsar, still musing; then half stirring: "Ah! my daughter, do you remember where we were one year ago this night?"
"We were at our summer house by Chalcedon, and doubtless had just returned from a sail to the Isles of the Princes on the Emperor's own galley."
"It is beautiful, that Bosphorus; and our noble capital," ran on Manuel, dreamily. "No church in the world like to our Hagia Sophia! No dwelling like the 'Sacred Palace' of our Emperor! No river fairer than the blue Bosphorus! Ours are all the trophies of the art of Greece at her prime; ours the books preserving the ancient learning; the speech of Plato, of Demosthenes, so unlike this Frankish magpies' chatter! Do you not long to be back? I shall be recalled. You will be again a great lady at Constantinople; marry some 'pan-sebastos,' or perhaps the heir of the purple buskins himself." Mary was silent; the old man continued: "No reply? I know your thoughts. You are half a Frank and love them better: better to watch these mad knights at tourney than read Polybius with the Princess Anna?"
"Yes, my father," was the simple reply; "we have glory, art, learning, a name never to die. But the future is with these Franks—so boisterous, so brutish! For high resolve and higher action make people great, not gazing at statues, and reading of brave deeds done of old."
More silence save for the bulbuls and the fountain.
"Daughter mine," replied the Cæsar, "you say well. We have fought a good fight,—we of the Rome by the Bosphorus: we have flung back Avar and Arab. The Turks press hard, yet we may hold them at bay a little longer; but our race is indeed grown old, and our glory, too. And you love the West? What wonder! your mother spoke this Languedoc in which this De Valmont sings. And doubtless you will give your hand to him; men say he is a mighty cavalier; as his wife you will be a great lady among these Franks."
"Father!" cried out Mary, in protest.
"No," said the Greek, still smiling, "I will not give you away against your will. If not he, whom? Does the Moslem Iftikhar find favor? Religion sits light in this strange Sicily."
But Mary shook her head angrily.