Part 27

"In the name of the devil you stay where you are," Lycabetta cried, and clapped her hands.

Instantly the hangings that concealed the entrance parted, and the black giants entered and stood silently awaiting Lycabetta's orders.

Perpetua moved to them with a gesture of authority.

"Let me pass," she commanded.

The Moors stood motionless. Lycabetta called to her captive:

"Those slaves are as strong and merciless as wild beasts. Whatever I told them to do to you, they would do to you."

Perpetua moved back towards Lycabetta. Lycabetta gave a sign and the blacks disappeared behind the curtains.

Perpetua advanced to Lycabetta and looked her squarely in the face.

"Why have I been brought here?" she demanded, sternly, though despair was tugging at her heartstrings.

Lycabetta leaned back upon her couch and looked at her prisoner curiously. The Neapolitan recognized that there was beauty of a kind given to the girl--in her hair, red as the reddest sunset, in her candid eyes, in the strong, supple body, overbrown from mountain light and mountain air for Lycabetta's fancy. This was a raw taste of the King's, she thought, contemptuously; the girl would only be passable in a while, in a long while. What kind of passion was it that a king could feel for a country wench, while her gardens were thronged with shapes of loveliness, while she, Lycabetta, still lived? The passions of the great are mad fancies, but surely this was the maddest fancy greatness ever entertained. So she mused while Perpetua watched her. She was stirred from her meditations when the girl repeated her question.

"Why have I been brought here?"

"You are too idle in the forest," Lycabetta answered, "and so you are sent here to be apprenticed to my trade."

Perpetua moved a little nearer to her, questioning her with eyes and speech.

"What is your trade?"

Lycabetta turned to the bronze image of Venus and held out her hands to it.

"The oldest in the world. We were busy before Babylon was built or Troy burned. We shall be busy till the world grows gray."

Perpetua repeated her question.

"Speak plainly. What is your trade?"

Lycabetta answered her frankly.

"The trade of love. We sell smiles and kisses and sweet hours, and men buy them gladly, even at the price of their souls."

"I know you now," Perpetua said, crossing herself. "Though I dwell with innocence upon the heights, I am not ignorant of the world's depths. I know you now, and God knows I pity you. Let me go."

Lycabetta shook her head.

"Why should you pity me? You should rather envy me. I am the joy of life. I grasp and clasp all pleasures, heedless of the passing hour. I make the most of our little summer, our fleeting sunlight. To drink, to love, to laugh is the swallow flight of my soul. You shall be as wise as I am and as happy."

"Have you no fear of God?" Perpetua asked, in sad curiosity. Brought face to face with sin, her soul felt its pity stronger than its horror.

Lycabetta laughed, and her laughter sounded to Perpetua like the music of birds in a magic wood.

"I fear nothing but old age. Chilling kisses, the death of desire, the sands that overwhelm the altar of youth, the dying lights and fading garlands of life's waning feast--these things I fear, but these things are not yet for you or for me, and when they come there is always the hemlock."

"You speak despair," Perpetua insisted, eager with the eagerness of untainted youth. "I answer with God's mercy that can cleanse and save you. You are the Strange Woman--but you are a woman, born of a woman, made to bear the burden of women. Woman to woman, let me go."

"I love you too well to lose you," Lycabetta retorted. "You dream too much. I shall take great joy in teaching you realities. You do not know the value of your violet freshness. You will make a sweet priestess of love."