Page:The Song of the Sirens.djvu/132

 drew him down to sit upon the long marble seat, from which they could look between the statues of the Satyrs over the fountain of the Tortoises across the whole garden to the terrace where the maids were and to the villa's walls and the stiff, erect palms and clumsy leaning date-palms, sharp against the intense azure sky.

"Don't you really love me, Dexibios?" she asked, nestling into the curve of his arm.

"You know I love you, sweetheart," he assured her.

"And don't you know that I love you?" she demanded.

"I most certainly do!" he exclaimed.

"Then why don't you look happy?" she queried. "Oughtn't you to be satisfied, when I come to meet you this way?"

"I suppose I ought," he admitted. "But"

"But what?" she insisted.

"It seems to me," Dexibios explained, "that if you really loved me the right way we would be married already, instead of meeting by stealth in a garden."

"You silly boy," she laughed at him, "Cyrene wasn't built in a day. Anything worth while takes time. We'll be married, I'll manage that. But how could we be married already?"

"Hasn't your father promised you," he catechized