“Go to your room, Daughter,” said Nikander quietly. “I cannot talk with you here.” And Theria fled in an agony of shame. Pindar’s voice broke the silence. “By the deep-vested Graces, Nikander, but I think we have broken into a pretty dialogue. Would I had heard some of it.” The boy, redder still, hid behind his father. Nikander shook his head in whimsical despair. “What am I to do with a daughter like that? I never know what she will do next. She’s perfectly good, I assure you. She only breaks rules like a colt.” “She’s your image,” laughed Pindar. “Your own face faced you when she spoke. Ay, and your spirit, too. By Artemis, did you mark how she fled up the stairs with head held high?” “She’s a twin, you know,” said Nikander. “The boy is more beautiful.” “Ay, I know your Dryas. The coming beauty they say, and perhaps the coming singer.” Nikander’s face flushed with pleasure. “The lyrists tell me so,” he assented. * * * * * Thus Eros brushed his wings across Theria’s fancy and flew away. No business of his was this. But youth was here—fearful impressibility: A breath, and youth is changed. Who shall say that when in after years this boy sang of a woman and gave her a new type of nobleness the image of this proud sweet maid of Delphi did not float before him and make his creation real? And as for Theria, the encounter was a peep outward into the world. From this time she became more aware of the hurry of development outside in the awakening land of Greece. From this time she felt it—the joyous advance into the light, new art, new politics, new thoughts. The amassing knowledge of centuries was converging to a focus and the heart of the Greeks soared into a mental atmosphere never known before or since. This intense point came in Theria’s lifetime. No wonder the light of it penetrated all her walls and restrictions. No wonder she struggled to be free to meet it. Her own youth was of the youth-time of Hellas and longed to be merged with it as flame yearns toward flame. CHAPTER XI WHY NOT BE THE PYTHIA? In times of war we picture every corner of a warring land torn with passion, dark with fear, dyed with blood. But this is not so. In Nikander’s household the four meals a day were served by quiet slaves, the washing was done down in the Pleistos River as the good housewife Melantho required it. Eleutheria received her daily lesson in spinning and weaving and damaged more good wool than any maid of all the generations of Nikanders. This indeed was Dame Melantho’s chief grief, despite the fact that her little land was cowering under the heaviest cloud of war that ever threatened a devoted country.