“Oh, yes. Be content, be content! Even a slave dare mock me with that. And you yourself, what do you want with _your_ freedom? Why aren’t you happy making pots? What is the difference between making pots and spinning wool? What is the difference between obeying a master and obeying a father, brother, uncle, cousin; every man that is your kin? What have I to look forward to? What to do—to do?” The man fairly trembled before her outburst. “Despoina! Dear, dear lady,” he kept trying to make her listen. “I—fool that I was not to understand the beautiful one. Despoina, hear me!” Something in the man’s ardent voice frightened Theria. She stumbled to her feet. But the man came nearer. “Despoina, ah, poor lady, you have been away from home many hours, have you not?” “How dare you question me?” She walked away. She was dizzy, staggering. The man was following her. What would he do, seize her? Carry her to Nikander’s house for reward? Perhaps do worse than that? “Do not go,” he urged. “Mistress, you are famished. Forgive me, but we slaves know the look.” He snatched from his wallet the rough brown bread, the day’s slave ration. He pushed the bread into her hand. “I pray you eat it. Not fit for you. Oh, I know that, but if you do not eat you will faint here in the wood.” She turned to him. Then suddenly she laughed. “Hungry? Why, of course, I never thought of hunger.” She sat down, broke the tough bread, and began to eat. The man ran down the hill to the stream and returned with a little cup (one from his pottery) brimming with fresh water. As he offered it he trembled and spilled it awkwardly. “Forgive me, lady. I am not a house slave.” How breathless he seemed from his short run. “Dear lady,” he added gently as to a child, “do not eat so fast; I will guard. I will let no one come. I have cheese, too, but I was afraid to give you that. I could not eat their cheese at first myself.” But she took it eagerly. It was atrocious stuff, smelling horribly and perfectly green of colour. “Isn’t it strange?” she said. “It tastes as good as the daintiest fish. I never was hungry like this before.” “My lady was never in the forest before,” said the man. “The house breeds no appetite.” “I have been long without food,” she confided to him now. “I ran away before dawn and I never thought to eat. I walked up into the sanctuary and saw all the gods and temples and golden tripods. Oh, if they take me home and whip me now and put me in the dark, they can never take that away from me.” “Whip—great Zeus, who would dare do that!” “No one, no one,” she quickly answered. “Of course, that was only jest.” But his eyes still held the horror of it as he watched her. “Do you know,” she said, as she finished the last morsel, “this bread has given me all the rest of my precious day. With my hunger I would have had to go home.” “May it give you your hours,” said the slave devoutly. “You who are giving me a life of freedom.”