Page:The Song of the Sirens.djvu/135

 proclamation and his oath and his pledge and his promise. And all the priests and priestesses and town-hallers and citizens and cities and districts would say he was right and that what was more he had been wrong even to ever think of such a monstrous innovation as allowing a girl to choose her husband and that nobody but a fool would be so complacent to an ungrateful little pig of a daughter. And then I should have to marry some fat, old, red-faced fright with a big belly just like his round money-bags, and with a town house and a country house and a stable of four-horse chariot-teams and a yacht and all that sort of thing and I should be miserable forever after."

"But none of your suitors are old, fat, red-faced men," Dexibios protested irrelevantly.

"Of course not, silly," Thessa retorted, "Daddy's proclamation has gone everywhere, so all the rich fathers have sent their dandified sons and all the rich uncles have sent their handsome nephews, in hopes that I will fall in love with their good looks and choose one of them. But if Daddy were choosing a husband for me all the rich uncles would be after me for themselves, yes, and as many of the rich fathers as happen to be widowers. And Daddy would marry me to the richest man who would make the biggest settlement on me and be content with the smallest