Page:The Song of the Sirens.djvu/134



"But if he will keep his word," Dexibios held on, "why do you keep me waiting? Why not tell him I am your choice and be done with it?"

"Because, you silly boy," she said, "that would ruin everything and make it impossible for me ever to be your wife. For Daddy would say that his promise, and his pledge and his oath and his proclamation and his advertising that I was to marry the man of my choice applied only to men fit by birth and station and wealth to aspire to marry the daughter of the richest man in Cyrene, the richest man in the Pentapolis, the richest man in all Libya between Egypt and Carthage. He would say that no one could pretend that his promise and his pledge and his oath and his proclamation and his heralding left me free to choose a pauper orphan hanger-on of his retinue (for you are nothing more than that now, Dexibios dear, and you know it, though I love you better than all the world and though you are going to be my husband and a very great and important and notable man before I get done with you) any more than to a menial or a porter or a slave or a Nubian or a pigmy. And ail the districts and cities and citizens and town-hallers and priestesses and priests would say he was right. And then he would say my folly and frivolity and undutiful impiety had absolved him from his advertising and his heralding and his