human
You look as if you had met with a ghost; your lips are pale instead of red, and there are dark shades round your eyes. What has happened to you, child? Irene went with you to the procession, that I know. Have you had bad news of your parents? You shake your head. Come, child, perhaps you are thinking of some one more than you ought; how the color rises in your cheeks! Certainly handsome Publius, the Roman, must have looked into your eyes--a splendid youth is he--a fine young man-- a capital good fellow--
gpt
Say no more on that subject, Klea exclaimed, interrupting her friend and protector, and waving her hand in the air as if to cut off the other half of Serapion's speech.
human
I can hear nothing more about him.
gpt
Has he addressed you unbecomingly?
human
Yes! said Klea, turning crimson, and with a vehemence quite foreign to her usual gentle demeanor,
gpt
Only with looks? said the anchorite.
human
But we may look even at the glorious sun and at the lovely flowers as much as we please, and they are not offended.
gpt
The sun is too high and the soulless flowers too humble for a man to hurt them, replied Klea.
human
But the Roman is neither higher nor lower than I, the eye speaks as plain a language as the tongue, and what his eyes demand of me brings the blood to my cheeks and stirs my indignation even now when I only think of it.
gpt
And that is why you avoid his gaze so carefully?
human
Who told you that?
gpt
Publius himself; and because he is wounded by your hard-heartedness he meant to quit Egypt; but I have persuaded him to remain, for if there is a mortal living from whom I expect any good for you and yours--
human
It is certainly not he, said Klea positively.
gpt
You are a man, and perhaps you now think that so long as you were young and free to wander about the world you would not have acted differently from him--it is a man's privilege; but if you could look into my soul or feel with the heart of a woman, you would think differently. Like the sand of the desert which is blown over the meadows and turns all the fresh verdure to a hideous brown-like a storm that transforms the blue mirror of the sea into a crisped chaos of black whirl pools and foaming ferment, this man's imperious audacity has cruelly troubled my peace of heart. Four times his eyes pursued me in the processions; yesterday I still did not recognize my danger, but to-day--I must tell you, for you are like a father to me, and who else in the world can I confide in?--to-day I was able to avoid his gaze, and yet all through long endless hours of the festival I felt his eyes constantly seeking mine. I should have been certain I was under no delusion, even if Publius Scipio--but what business has his name on my lips?--even if the Roman had not boasted to you of his attacks on a defenceless girl. And to think that you, you of all others, should have become his ally! But you would not, no indeed you would not, if you knew how I felt at the procession while I was looking down at the ground, and knew that his very look desecrated me like the rain that washed all the blossoms off the young vine-shoots last year. It was just as if he were drawing a net round my heart--but, oh! what a net! It was as if the flax on a distaff had been set on fire, and the flames spun out into thin threads, and the meshes knotted of the fiery yarn. I felt every thread and knot burning into my soul, and could not cast it off nor even defend myself. Aye! you may look grieved and shake your head, but so it was, and the scars hurt me still with a pain I cannot utter.
human
But Klea, interrupted Serapion,
gpt
I need none of your gods! answered the girl in great agitation.
human
Oh! I wish you had left me to my fate, and that we had shared the lot of our parents, for what threatens us here is more frightful than having to sift gold-dust in the scorching sun, or to crush quartz in mortars. I did not come to you to speak about the Roman, but to tell you what the high-priest had just disclosed to me since the procession ended.
gpt
Well?