Part 34

"Is your lord asleep?" she asked, and the duchess made a grimace as she answered:

"He is never my lord, though I be ever his lady. Where is your toy of the gods?"

Argathona was still looking at the recumbent figure, and she questioned again:

"You are sure he is asleep?"

Esclaramonde clasped and unclasped her fine fingers impatiently.

"You tease like a peevish child," she protested. "I blended his drink with such syrups that the trump of Jove would not wake him for an hour to come. Quick, my gift."

Argathona slipped her hand into the pouch that hung from her girdle, and let her fingers rest on the golden apple that lay there. She felt that she trembled as she touched it, and that her heart was beating to a most unfamiliar time. For now she was face to face with her enemy, now or never she must prevail upon her enemy to unspell the spell that had been cast upon her lover. She spoke again, while she still kept the apple hidden.

"You remember the terms of our bargain? If I give you the golden apple you give me your love."

"Yes," Esclaramonde cried, angrily, "yes, fretful. Why do you waste time thus?"

Now Argathona drew out the golden apple from her pouch and showed it in the hollow of her hand. That golden apple was a wonderful toy, for while it had all the shape and semblance of the living fruit, it glowed on the white palm of the dryad as if its precious metal had been steeped in the essential sunlight, in the essential starlight, and forever gave off something of the glory of the sun and stars. The duchess glowed a lively red as she saw the splendid idol, and instinctively, for an instant, shielded with her fingers her eyes against its brightness, while she gave a little animal cry of admiration. But she swiftly lowered her fingers from her face and made a clutch at the marvellous image, but Argathona avoided her, and Argathona's hand shut over the apple.

"What will you tell your lord when he wakes?" she asked, still gazing at young Athens where he lay.

The duchess banged her hands together, and her eyes blazed with frustrated covetousness.

"If you call him my lord again," she cried, "I shall hate you. He is my servant, my slave, my puppet; he shall believe what I please when he wakes. Why, he will not know that he has slept at all, and as for this trinket, how can he know what riches I hold in my treasury at Thebes? Give me my gift, sweet minion."

Argathona looked straight into the face of Esclaramonde, and her eyes were bright and stern.

"Do you love this man?" she asked, and she pointed with the hand that held the desirable apple to where Rainouart lay huddled on the table. Esclaramonde made a face of disdain.

"Love is a word of many meanings. He is a prince and he is rich; he is young and he is comely. He is different from the others I have loved, and for the time he pleases me."

Argathona's face was set and her voice was cold as she spoke again, asking the fateful question,

"How did you come to care for this man?"

The duchess gave a little laugh that brimmed with malicious memories.

"I knew him first a while ago in France, when he was counted a cold monster, and indeed I failed to melt his ice, though I tried my liveliest. Then fate flung him at my feet the other day in the haunted wood."

"And he loved you at once," Argathona asked, "loved you with all his heart and soul?"

Esclaramonde flung back her crowned head and laughed mockingly at her questioner.

"Am I not comely enough to be so loved?" she retorted, and Argathona, seizing sudden chance, bent her head in acquiescence.

"If he love you so well," she sighed, "were it not shame for us to do him wrong? Let us part now in honor, and when he wakes you will rejoice to be worthy of his loyal love."

And Argathona made as if she would go from the room, but she was cunning, and the golden apple gleamed through the net of her fingers. Rage flamed hotly in the eyes and cheeks of Esclaramonde.

"You question like a cold priest," she complained, "when you should clasp like a warm lover. But you can go if you please when you give me the trinket."

And she held out her hand imperiously, but Argathona still kept the apple. Now Esclaramonde was very loath to lose her lover though she professed indifference, and she was firmly determined to gain the apple.

"Nay," said Argathona, craftily, "I am a Greek and give nothing for nothing. But I would your lord were not so single-hearted a lover, for my vows deny me to wrong him."