Page:Maurice Hewlett--Little novels of Italy.djvu/91

Rh of his daughter, shone by her reflected light, guessed (and had reasonable grounds for guessing) the profit it might be; but lastly, seeing the suitors sought not to marry her, and she would do no less, he grew disgusted with so windy a business, beat her for what was no fault of hers, and bade her be sold or begone. Ippolita, who began her day's processioning with music and flowers, ended it mostly in tears and stripes. There seemed no escape. If she went to draw water at the well the courtiers jostled for her first salutation; if she went to mass in the grey of the morning, so, blinking, did they. The priest who confessed her paid her compliments, the blind beggar at the church door looked at her out of one eye. She was incredibly the fashion; and the women, far from being jealous, were as wild about her as the men. She could have had a Court of Virgins, or gone like Artemis, buskined through the thickets, with a hundred high-girdled nymphs behind her, all for her sake locked in chastity. They also made her presents, which her father sold, until (learning to fear the Greeks, their brothers), she gently forbore them. Whereupon, the honest stone-mason had fresh cause for chastisement of so incalculably calculating a child.

The hunted fair at last came to a point where she must stand or deliver. From three desperate lovers there seemed no sure road. All that was possible she did. She consulted her priest; he patted her cheek. A very old woman of her intimacy advised her to look in the glass; she did, and blushed at her own distressful face. A