“You do not know what that poor soul had suffered.  Mary, her son’s widow, had been very cruel to her, had done her injuries she could never forgive—­so perhaps you are right in your notion; but all the same, my grandmother had a great liking for you—­and after all her wish is fulfilled, for Marcus has found you and he loves you, too, if I am not mistaken!”

“If you are not mistaken!” retorted Dada.  “The gods forefend!—­Yes, we have found each other, we love each other.  Why should I conceal it?”

“And Mary, his mother—­what has she to say to it?” asked Gorgo.

“I do not know,” replied Dada abashed.

“But she is his mother, you know!” cried Gorgo severely.  “And he will never—­never—­marry against her will.  He depends on her for all that he has in the world.”

“Then let her keep it!” exclaimed Dada.  “The smaller and humbler the home he gives me the better I shall like it.  I want his love and nothing more.  All—­all he desires of me is right and good; he is not like other men; he does not care for nothing but my pretty face.  I will do whatever he bids me in perfect confidence; and what he thinks about me you may judge for yourself, for he is going to put me in the care of his tutor Eusebius.”

“Then you have accepted his creed?” asked Gorgo.  “Certainly I have,” said Dada.

“I am glad of that for his sake,” said the merchant’s daughter.  “And if the Christians only did what their preachers enjoin on them one might be glad to become one.  But they make a riot and destroy everything that is fine and beautiful.  What have you to say to that—­you, who were brought up by Karnis, a true votary of the Muses?”

“I?” said Dada.  “There are bad men everywhere, and when they rise to destroy what is beautiful I am very sorry.  But we can love it and cherish it all the same.”

“You are happy indeed if you can shut your eyes at the dictates of your heart!” retorted Gorgo, but she sighed.  “Happy are they and much to be envied who can compel their judgment to silence when it is grief to hear its voice.  I—­I who have been taught to think, cannot abandon my judgment; it builds up a barrier between me and the happiness that beckons me.  And yet, so long as truth remains the highest aim of man, I will bless the faculty of seeking it with all the powers of my mind.  My betrothed husband, like yours, is a Christian; and I would I could accept his creed as unflinchingly as you; but it is not in my nature to leap into a pool when I know that it is full of currents and whirlpools.—­However, the present question has to do with you and not with me.  Marcus, no doubt, will be happy to have won you; but if he does not succeed in gaining his mother’s consent he will not continue happy you may rely upon it.  I know these Christians! they cannot conceive of any possible joy in married life without their parents’ blessing, and if Marcus defies his mother he will torture his conscience and lead a death-in-life, as though he were under some heavy load of guilt.”