The Ruinous Face | Page 3

answered, "But I have seen my lord, for at this hour my lord Alexandros is accustomed to sleep and I to wake. And so I take the air, and am by myself."
"O God!" he said, "would that I could come at thee, lady." She replied him nothing. So, after a little while of looking, he spoke to her again, saying, "Is this true which thou makest me to think, that thou walkest here in order that thou mayst be by thyself? Is it true, O thou God-begotten?"
She said, smiling a little, "Is it so wonderful a thing that I should desire to be alone?"
"By my fathers," he said, "I think it wonderful. And more wonderful is it to me that it should be allowed thee." And then he looked earnestly at her, and asked her this: "Dost thou, therefore, desire that I should leave thee?"
"Nay," said she slowly, "I said not so."
"Ask me to stay, and I stay," he said. But she made no answer to that; but looked down to the earth at her feet. "Behold," said the King presently, "ten years and more since I have known my wife. Now if I were to cast my spear at thee and rive open thy golden side, what wonder were it? Answer me that."
She looked long at him, that he saw the deep gray of her eyes. And he heard the low voice answer him, "I know that my lord would never do it." And he knew it better than she, and the reason as well as she.
* * * * *
A little while more they talked together, alone in the sunless light; and she was in a gentle mood, as indeed she always was, and calmed the fret in him, so that he could keep still and take long breaths, and look at her without burning in his heart. She asked him of their child, and when he told her it was well, stood thoughtful and silent. "Here," said she, presently, "I have no child," and it seemed to him that she sighed.
"O Lady," he said, "dost thou regret nothing of all these ten long years?"
Her answer was to look long at him without speech. And then again she veiled her eyes with her eyelids and hung her head. He dared say nothing.
Paris came out of the house, fresh from the bath, rosy and beautiful, and whistled a low clear note, like the call of a bird at evening. Then he called upon Helen.
"Where is my love? Where is the Desire of the World?"
She looked up quickly at King Menelaus, and smiled half, and moved her hand; and she went to Paris. Then the King groaned, and rent himself. But he would not stay, nor look up, lest he should see what he dared not see.
* * * * *
Next day, very early, and every day after, those two, long-severed, kept a tryst: so in time she came to be there first, and a strife grew between them which should watch for the other. And after a little she would sit upon the wall and speak happily to him without disguise. So happiness came to him, too, and he ceased to reproach her. For she reasoned very gently with him of her own case, urging him not to be angry with her. Defending herself, she said, "Thou shouldst not reproach me, husband, nor wouldst thou in thy heart if thou knewst what is in mine, or what my portion has been since with fair words in many-mansioned Sparta he did beguile me. With words smoother than honey, and sweeter than the comb of it he did beguile me, and with false words made me believe that I was forsaken and betrayed; and urged me to take ship with him in search of thee. Nor ever once did he reveal himself until we touched Cran? in the ship. Then he showed me all his power, and declared his purpose with me. And I could do nothing against him; and so he brought me to Troy and kept me there. All these years he has loved, and still loves me in his fashion: and art thou angry with me, my lord, that I do not for ever reproach him, or spend myself in tears, and fast, and go like one distraught, holding myself aloof from all his house? Nay, but of what avail would that be, or what reward to many that treat me well here in Troy? For King Priam, the old king, is good to me, and the Queen also; and my lord Hector was above all men good to me, and defended me always against scorn and evil report. True it is that I have been the reproach of men, both Trojans and Ach?ans; and all the woes