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The girl stood up, looking uneasily at the old woman; Damia nodded knowingly, as much as to say that they quite understood each other and again offered her hand to Dada; but Dada could not kiss it; she turned and followed the others more gravely than usual.
Old Damia laid aside her stick, and taking her son's face in both her withered hands, muttered a few words which were half a fond appeal and half a magical formula, and then the women were alone. For a long while both were silent. The old woman sat sunk in her arm-chair while Gorgo stood with her back against the pedestal of a bust of Plato, gazing meditatively at the ground.
Constantine, who had come home a short time previously, had said nothing, but had accompanied the two women. While Constantine gazed with no unkindly feelings at the still face of Damia to whom, after all, he owed many a little debt of kindness and then turned to look at Gorgo who stood downcast, pale, and struggling to breathe calmly, Dame Marianne tried to proffer a few words of consolation.
Then for there may be a metempsychosis your songful spirit might revive to inform a nightingale, then . . ." Damia paused; and gazed upwards as if in ecstasy, and it was not till a few minutes later that she went on, with a changed expression in her face: "Then my son's widow, Mary, would be hatched out of a serpent's egg and would creep a writhing asp. . . . Great gods! the ravens!
Gorgo's blue spangled dress, which Damia had sent her, suited the girl to perfection; but she was quite out of breath, and her hair was in disorder. Herse, too, looked agitated, her face was red and she dragged little Papias, whose hand she held, rather roughly at her heels.
However, as she opined, this attachment could hardly lead to marriage, since Constantine was a zealous Christian and his family were immeasurably beneath that of Porphyrius in rank; and though he had distinguished himself greatly and risen to the grade of Prefect, Damia, who on all occasions had the casting-vote, had quite other views for her granddaughter.
Damia drew herself up in her chair. "I," she exclaimed passionately, "I I dare, and I do hope and trust in the future. Is everything to perish which our forefathers planned and founded? Is this dismal superstition to overwhelm and bury the world and all that is bright and beautiful, as the lava stream rolled over the cities of Vesuvius? No, a thousand times no!
"Christian scruples," said the merchant, and Damia added: "Let Eros touch her that will loosen her tongue." "Eros, always Eros!" repeated Gorgo shrugging her shoulders. "Nay, love means suffering those who love drag a chain with them. To do the best of which he is capable man needs only to be free, true, and in health." "That is a great deal, fair mistress," replied Karnis eagerly.
Before long Dada was alone, cooling herself with her new fan and eating sweetmeats; but she could not cease thinking of the shameful treachery planned by old Damia, and while she rejoiced to reflect that she had not fallen into the net, and had seen through the plot, her wrath against the wicked old woman and Gorgo whom she could not help including burnt within her.
"And the enemy will perish in the same ruin!" continued Damia, her eyes sparkling with revived fire. "But where shall we go to where? The soul is divine by nature and cannot be destroyed. It must return say, am I right or wrong? It will return to its first fount and cause; for like attracts and absorbs like, and thus our deification, our union with the god will be accomplished."
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