Page:The Song of the Sirens.djvu/253



"But what use was it," she repeated, "if I must lose you after all."

"Even if I must die now," he said, "I had all the bliss of coming back to life and love under your care. I can go bravely remembering all those delicious hours of solicitude and affection; and you must always remember how much it meant to me, how utterly I reveled in it all."

The inner portal opened and between the immobile guards there staggered out a specter of a general, gray-cheeked, too brow-beaten to hide his condition from the throng. The room fell silent as he tottered through it to the outer portal. After he was gone conversation was even more subdued than before.

Presently a page approached the three in the alcove.

"Bassus?" he queried, curtly.

Bassus stood up.

Regardless of the throng Corinna clung to him, kissing him repeatedly, and sobbing.

"Be brave, dear," he said, gently disengaging her arms from his neck. "A scene can only worsen my slender chances. Be brave. Goodby."

He kissed her gravely once; kissed her mother, pressed a hand of each, and followed the page.

In the small private-audience room Bassus found an Emperor not irate nor glum, nor sarcastic,