something, I am sure.
Won't you sit down, and may I not order some refreshment for you? The
people here are very hospitable."

Her gesture of dissent was almost peremptory.

"No!"

The monosyllable had a sting which surprised him.

"Tell me what it is?" he begged.

She opened her lips and closed them again. He saw then the rising and
falling of her bosom underneath that black stuff gown. She stretched
out her hand towards the gardens. Somehow or other, she seemed to grow
taller.

"I do not understand this," she said. "I do not understand your being
here, one of them, dressed like them, speaking their language, sharing
their luxuries. It is a great blow to me. It is perhaps because I am
foolish, but it tortures me!"

"But isn't that a little unreasonable?" he asked her quietly. "To
accomplish anything in this world, it is necessary to know more than one
side of life."

"But this--this," she cried hysterically, "is the side which has made
our blood boil for generations! These women in silk and laces, these
idle, pleasure-loving men, this eating and drinking, this luxury in
beautiful surroundings, with ears deafened to all the mad, sobbing cries
of the world! This is their life day by day. You have been in the
wilderness, you have seen the life of those others, you have the feeling
for them in your heart. Can you sit at table with these people and wear
their clothes, and not feel like a hypocrite?"

"I assure you," Maraton replied, "that I can."

She was trembling slightly. She had never seemed to him so tall. Her
eyes now were ablaze. She had indeed the air of a prophetess.

"They are ignorant men, they who sent you that letter," she continued,
pointing to it, "but they have the truth. Do you know what they are
saying?"

Maraton inclined his head gravely. He felt that he knew very well what
they were saying. She did not give him time, however, to interrupt.

"They are saying that you are to be bought, that that is why you are
here, that Mr. Foley will pay a great price for you. They are saying
that all those hopes we had built upon your coming, are to be dashed
away. They say that you are for the flesh-pots. I daren't breathe a
word of this to Aaron," she added hurriedly, "or I think that he would
go mad. He is blind with passionate love for you. He does not see the
danger, he will not believe that you are not as a god."

Maraton looked past her into the gardens, away into the violet sky. The
nightingal