Page:The Song of the Sirens.djvu/97

 he begun to relish it than he must tear himself away from it, give it all up, leave it behind and go out to more wanderings and toils and sufferings and disappointments and he did not blench. He went. He suffered more than Dido, though he talked less. But he never thought of giving up, he accepted his fate as it came to him and did his duty as he found it. Not even his worst enemy could fail to sympathize with him. Even you cannot help sympathizing with him. You know in your heart you cannot but approve of his unhesitating obedience to Jove's behest, you cannot but admire the strength of will equal to such magnificent self-control, you cannot but sympathize with his heartache and regrets."

"Nothing," said Iarbas, "can alter the fact that Dido killed herself because Aeneas left her. Nothing can alter the fact that he is under the curse she laid upon him before she died. The fact of the curse by itself should cut him off from any reminiscent sympathy in your heart, from even the thought of it."

Anna bowed her face into her covering hands and began to weep softly.

The warrior king stood staring down at her helpless and uneasy.

Presently she took her hands from her face, dried her eyes and looked up at him.

"Oh," she wailed, "if prayer or sacrifice or