Now Eëtíon lifts his bride from the chariot, carries her carefully over the high threshold that no stumble of her foot may bring ill luck. And they go into the marriage chamber. The door is shut and Eëtíon with reverent hand lifts the bridal veil to behold at last the wondering, half-frightened, yet happy face for which he has longed these many days. Soberly he gives to her the quince, symbolic food of those who are to be the mothers of men. Her hands, as she eats, tangle in the long enmeshing veil, and with a quick breath Eëtíon sweeps it off upon the floor. Her comely head is liberate, her shoulders and arms free. Suddenly he catches her away from ritual into a high shining reality. He folds her in his arms, kissing her forehead and mouth. “Oh, be free,” he whispers. “Your hands to act, your eyes to see, my Theria, giver of my freedom.” * * * * * Meanwhile, the guests outside the closed door make merry, chanting the epithalamion, calling rudely to the bridal pair as the ancient custom is, but they—they hear it not. CHAPTER XLVI THE DOOR OF ESCAPE Then followed a busy, happy winter. All the months must be passed in making ready the colony which was to start with the early navigation of the spring. Eëtíon journeyed to his old home in Argos, and found there, as he had expected, certain citizens who were faithful to Hellas and secretly grieving over Argos’s faithless stand in the war. Xerxes, the Persian king, was gone from Greece. But a formidable army of Persians yet lingered in Greece. Before these were vanquished fighting was yet to be—and these few Argive men were horrified at the prospect of fighting against their own. They returned with Eëtíon to Delphi. Theria tested these men, shrewdly asking them questions, watching their faces. Eëtíon, spite of experience, was a less keen judge than she. From wrong premises she was continually drawing right conclusions. After trying to help her Eëtíon gave up, laughing. The feminine way was new. In Delphi itself, Karamanor and Agis and a number of other kinsmen were glad to go. Those who were not married took brides forthwith. The new generation in the colony would have a strong Delphic stamp. Here was more business for the _œkist_, for not a bride among them wanted to go. Theria visited from one to the other, picturing the new life, persuading them. “No one in the colony shall be homesick if I can help it,” she told them. And remembering her own first reluctance to go, she could not be hard upon their timidity. Theria had never known girl-friends, but in these earnest conferences she acquired them. One little wife in particular—a girl of fourteen years, delicate, pale, whose father had been very severe and whose husband was now taking his turn at severity—Theria took to her heart with great tenderness. She was herself astonished at the way the little creature bloomed and grew strong under the new encouragement.