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"Don't shudder; he deserved it, and I shall be safe in a few days. These affairs are quickly forgotten. Besides, there is another reason why we should not live as we have lately been living." Xantippe opened her eyes as she asked, "What reason?" Gregorio relaxed his hold, for the memory of his loss shook him with sobs. Cat-like, Xantippe had waited her opportunity and sprang away from his grasp.
He felt it were useless to try and explain, though the reason seemed to him clear enough. "I am glad to have the chance," continued Xantippe, "of talking to you, for we may now understand each other. I have made the greatest sacrifice, and because it was for our son's sake I forgave you.
The policeman nodded knowingly and stalked away, leaving Septimus perplexed by his utterance. Was he a Socrates of a constable with a Xantippe at home, or did he regard him as a mild lunatic at large? Either solution was discouraging. He turned and walked back down Holborn somewhat dejected.
A nasty look came into the Jew's eyes, a cold, cunning look, and he was about to reply when the door opened and Xantippe entered. She was well dressed, and wore some ornaments of gold. Amos turned toward her, asking the man: "This is your wife?"
Now I know that you can pay me, and if you do not within two days, Gregorio Livadas, you will repent the insults you have heaped on my head this night." He walked quietly to the corner of the room, where Xantippe sat nursing the boy, touched the child gently on the forehead with his lips, and then went out.
In this family "the gray mare was the better horse," and poor Bishop, an inoffensive man, and a cripple withal, was wedded to a regular Xantippe. It was evident that unpleasant thoughts were dominant in the woman's mind as she proceeded sullenly and vigorously with preparations for breakfast. The bitter bread of charity was being prepared with a vengeance for the unwelcome guest.
Of the race of Englishmen who come wandering about the tomb of Socrates, do you think the majority would not have voted to hemlock him? Yes: for the very same superstition which leads men by the nose now, drove them onward in the days when the lowly husband of Xantippe died for daring to think simply and to speak the truth.
Xantippe leaned out of the window and saw them. When the Penny-farthing Shop began to fill Gregorio disappeared quietly by the back door. He muttered a half-unintelligible answer to the men who were playing cards in the dim parlour through which he had to pass, who called to him to join them.
Then I go in, and forget his existence. Suppose that in all this world, during all its ages, there never was a case of a person being always in an ill-humor. I believe that even Xantippe had her lucid intervals of amiability, during which she fondled her Socrates. At all events, father has. On the day after my disappointment, one such interval occurs.
Socrates did not plague himself much about the fate of Xantippe: Seneca wrote from his exile to console his mother, but the epistles were for the benefit of the world at large, and destined to descend to future generations of barbarians.
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