Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/350

Rh Because the food would not tempt me, they tried blows; and when I still kept silent, they wondered, and at last let me go, because one of their patriarchs reproved them, saying I was more faithful to man than they were to God."

"And he knew that you— his young child—suffered that for him?"

"Surely he knew it, later, in Athens."

"And it failed to make you sacred in his sight?"

"Nay, it only showed him that I was perhaps of the steel that would furnish him forth a choice weapon! I was proud to suffer for him; I adored him; and chiefly of all because I believed him sworn to the people's good, and a martyr for the sake of freedom. Whilst I was still so young those things were still so close at my heart! And he loved me in answer then, though I saw him seldom, and might have lived on charity but for Julian Vassalis;—then and until the time came when, there being no male of the great Byzantine race left, I succeeded to the whole of its splendour, and by the will of the dead chief, bore its name. From that moment the hate his foiled ambition and his cheated avarice bore against the Vassalis line, blent against me with the old tenderness that he bore me, and from that moment he saw in me only—his prey."