Page:The Song of the Sirens.djvu/100

 bearer of tokens and gifts and messages, as a smoother-out of misunderstandings.

"She felt his caresses and knew him her own for the time, basked in months of ecstasy; I must keep a serene face and suave tongue and watch their bliss and know that I was absolutely nothing to him and give no sign. I suffered ten thousand deaths a day while their felicity endured. I did not kill them, I did not kill myself, I shall not now. Dido should not have killed herself. She would have outworn her agony in time. So shall I. I believe not in making the worst of anything, but in making the best of everything."

"Now you talk more like yourself," said Iarbas. "I have not known you since I came here this time. I thought you too staid for such vehemence, too gentle for such feelings, too contained to show it if you felt any such."

"That has always been the way since I was a baby," Anna protested. "Father called me his little pillow, because I was so plump and soft, brother Sychaeus called me 'cushion,' even Pygmalion teased me about my tranquillity. Nobody ever gave me any credit for having any feelings."

"I do," said Iarbas.

"You do not show it," Anna asserted.

"Feelings or no feelings as that may be," Iarbas pursued. "You said just now you believe in making the best of things."