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“What my husband can hear, that can I,” was her retort. “Ah! but why do you look thus dreadfully on Glaucon?” “I have warned you, lady. Do not blame me if you hear the worst,” rejoined Democrates, barring the door. A single swinging lamp shed a fitful light on the scene—the whimpering prisoner, the others all amazed, the orator’s face, tense and white.
Even as he sat in the deeply pillowed arm-chair his eye lighted on a Nike,—a statuette of the precious Corinthian bronze, a treasure for which the dealer’s unpaid account lay still, alas! in the orator’s coffer. But Democrates was not thinking so much of the unpaid bronze-smith as of divers weightier debts.
The thread of the orator’s discourse was broken. He drank his tea and resumed the paper. ‘If it’s very fine,’ said Mr. Alfred Tomkins, addressing the company in general, ‘I shall ride down to Richmond to-day, and come back by the steamer.
Were I to interfere with ever so good a heart, it would only breed trouble for us all.” So close were the twain, the orator’s trailing chiton almost fell on Glaucon’s face. The latter marvelled that his own heart did not spring from its prison in his breast, so fierce were its beatings. “If my Lord would go to Adeimantus and suggest,”—the other’s Greek came with a marked Oriental accent. “Harpy!
“Blessed be Hera, my babe is too young to know aught of wars. And if we survive this one, will not just Zeus spare us from further bloodshed?” Democrates, without answering, approached the nurse, and Phœnix—for reasons best known to himself—ceased lamenting and smiled up in the orator’s face.
If Democrates could discover the confederate himself, Sicinnus would regard the matter as cleared up and drop all interest therein. All these possibilities raced through the orator’s head, as does the past through one drowning. A sudden greeting startled him. “A fair morning, Democrates.” It was Glaucon. He walked arm-in-arm with Cimon. “A fair morning, indeed. Where are you going?”
The ceiling of his living room was hung with white-plumed helmets, on the walls glittered brass greaves, handsomely embossed shields, inlaid Chalcidian scimitars, and bows tipped with gold. Under foot were expensive rugs. The orator’s artistic tastes were excellent.
You guess who I am, though you shall not name me. For what sum will you serve Xerxes the Great King?” The orator’s breath came deep. His hands clasped and unclasped, then were pressed behind his head. “I told Lycon, and I tell you, I am no traitor to Hellas.” “Which means, of course, you demand a fair price. I am not angry.
“I shall be very glad to see the noble Athenian in his own city. His fame for eloquence and prudence is already in Tyre and Babylon,” spoke the stranger, never taking his steel-blue eyes from the orator’s face. The accent was Oriental, but the Greek was fluent. The prince—for prince he was, whatever his nation—pressed his hand closer. Almost involuntarily Democrates’s hand responded.
Then, whilst acknowledging that as he has not the strength to bear arms, it is only with his pen and his speech that he can serve his country, he reminds them that it was the historian’s pen and the orator’s harangue, just as much as the warrior’s lance, that made the glory of the Romans.
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