She was gone.
Where was that ancient rigor of atmosphere in which she had been
reared? thought Laodice. Had it existed only in the shut house of
Costobarus? Was all the world wicked except that which was confined
within the four walls of her father's house? Could she survive long in
this unanimously bad environment? But she remembered Joseph of Pella,
the shepherd; even then his wholesomeness was not without its canker.
He was a Christian!
Philadelphus was at her side.
She flinched from him and would have fled, but he stopped her with a
sign.
"My lady objects to your presence in this house," he said. "You have
not made it worth my while to insist on your shelter here."
"Your lady," she said hotly, "is two-fold evilly engaged, then. She
has time to ruin you, while she furnishes John with all the
inspiration he would have for sonnets."
"So she refrains from furnishing John with my two hundred talents, I
shall not quarrel with her. You have your own difficulties to adjust,
and mine, only in so far as they concern you."
His voice had lost none of its smoothness, but it had become hard and
purposeful.
"I have come to that point, Philadelphus, where my difficulties and
not yours concern me," she replied. "I had nothing to give you but my
good will. You have outraged even that. Hereafter, no tie binds us."
"No? You cast off our ties as lightly as you assumed them. With a word
you announce me wedded to you; with another you speak our divorcement.
And I, poor clod, suffer it? The first, yes; but the last, no. You
see, I have fallen in love with you."
She turned her clear eyes away from him and waited calmly till she
could escape.
"You have spent your greatest argument in persuading me to be a king.
Kings, lady, are essentially tyrants, in these bad days. Wherefore, if
I am to be one, I shall not fail to be the other. And you--ah, you!
Will you endure the oppressor that you made?"
There was enough that was different in his manner and his words for
her to believe that something worthy of attention was to follow. She
looked at him, now.
"This roof, since the alienation of John to my wife, is mine empire.
Within it, I am despot. From its lady mistress, the Greek, to the
meanest slave, I have homage and subjection. Even thou wilt be
submissive to me--for having lost one wife through indulgence, I shall
be most tyrannical to the one yet in my power!"
She drew herself up in splendid defiance.
"I have not submitted!" she said. "I will not submit!"
"No? Nothing stands in your way now but yourself. Your supplanter hath
removed herself. And I shall make your submission easy."