“For all that, and all that,” Dada insisted, “he can no more be happy without me than I can without him.  I have never in my life paid court to any one, but I have always met with kindness.  Why then should I not be able to win his mother’s heart?  I will wager anything and everything that she will take kindly to me, for, after all, she must be glad when she sees her son happy.  Eusebius will speak for us and she will give its her blessing!  But if it is not to be, if I may never be his wife honestly and in the face of the world, still I will not give him up, nor he me.  He may deal with me as he will—­as if he were my god and I were his slave!”

“But, my poor child, do you know nothing of womanly honor and womanly dignity?” cried Gorgo clasping her hands.  “You complain of the lot of a singing-girl, and the cruel prejudices of the world—­and what are you saying?  Let me have my way, you would say, or I scorn your morality?”

“Scorn!” exclaimed Dada firing up.  “Do you say I scorn morality?  No, indeed no.  I am an insignificant little person; there is nothing proud or great about me, and as I know it full well I am quite humble; in all my life I never dared to think of scorn, even of a child.  But here, in my heart, something was awoke to life—­through Marcus, only through him—­something that makes me strong; and when I see custom and tradition in league against me because I am a singer, when they combine to keep me out of what I have a right to have—­well, within these few hours I have found the spirit to defend myself, to the death if need be!  What you call womanly honor I have been taught to hold as sacred as you yourself, and I have kept it as untainted as any girl living.  Not that I meant to do anything grand, but you have no idea of what it is when every man thinks he has a right to oppress and insult a girl and try to entrap her.  You, and others like you, know nothing of small things, for you are sheltered by walls and privileges.  We are every man’s game, while they approach you as humbly as if you were goddesses.—­Besides!  It is not only what I have heard from Karnis, who knows the world and fine folks like you; I have seen it for myself at Rome, in the senators’ houses, where there were plenty of young lords and great men’s daughters—­for I have not gone through life with my eyes shut; with you love is like lukewarm water in a bath, but it catches us like fire.  Sappho of Lesbos flung herself from the Leucadian rock because Phaon flouted her, and if I could save Marcus from any calamity by doing the same, I would follow her example.—­You have a lover, too; but your feeling for him, with all the ‘intellect’ and ‘reflections,’ and ‘thought’ of which you spoke, cannot be the right one.  There is no but or if in my, love at any rate; and yet, for all that, my heart aches so sorely and beats so wildly, I will wait patiently with Eusebius and submit to whatever I am bidden.—­And in spite of it all you condemn me unheard, for you. . . .