sort of
hunger in me, and I refuse to be satisfied any longer with the easygoing
existence of the last few years. No, you must hear me out. No matter
what you say now, the new order of things is irrevocable. I almost
quarreled with my father last night; but I told him plainly that I meant
to make a place for myself in the world. At any rate, I refuse to live
the life he lives, and I am here to-day because the awakening is due to
you, Joan."

A tremor ran through the girl's limbs; but she faced him bravely. Though
her lips quivered, she forced herself to utter words that sounded like a
jibe. "I am to play Pallas Athene to your Perseus," she said, and it
seemed to him for a moment that she was in a mood to jest at heroics.

"If you mean that I regard you as my goddess, I am well content," he
answered quickly.

"Ah, but wait. Pallas Athene came to Perseus in a dream, and let us make
believe that we are dreaming now. She had great gray eyes, clear and
piercing, and she knew all thoughts of men's hearts and the secrets of
their souls. My eyes are not gray, Alec, nor can they pierce as hers;
but I can borrow her beautiful words, and tell you that she turns her
face from the creatures of clay. They may 'fatten at ease like sheep in
the pasture, and eat what they did not sow, like oxen in the stall. They
grow and spread, like the gourd along the ground; but, like the gourd,
they give no shade to the traveler, and when they are ripe death gathers
them, and they go down unloved into hell, and their name vanishes out of
the land.' But to the souls of fire she gives more fire, and to those
who are manful she gives a power more than man's. These are her heroes,
the sons of the Immortals. They are blest, but not as the men who live
at ease. She drives them forth 'by strange paths ... through doubt and
need and danger and battle.... Some of them are slain in the flower of
their youth, no man knows when or where, and some of them win noble
names and a fair and green old age.' Not even the goddess herself can
tell the hap that shall befall them; for each man's lot is known only to
Zeus. Have you reflected well on these things, Alec? Be sure of
yourself! There may be Gorgons to encounter, and monsters of the deep."

He came very near to her. Her eyes were glistening. For one glowing
second they looked into each other's hearts.

"And perhaps a maiden chained to a rock to be rescued," he whispered.

Then she drew herself up proudly.