Part 51 (2/2)
Niobe's face fell. ”I've only this half-drachma.”
”Then, _philotata_,” said Dion, kindly but firmly, ”we had better wait a little longer.”
Niobe wept. ”_Ai!_ woe. 'A little longer' and Jocasta has Procles. I can't ask Hermione again for money. _Ai! ai!_”
Two round tears did not move Dion in the slightest. Niobe was sobbing, at her small wits' end, when a voice sounded behind her.
”What's there wrong, la.s.s? By Zeus, but you carry a handsome child!”
Niobe glanced, and instantly stopped weeping. A young man dressed roughly as a sailor, and with long black hair and beard, had approached her, but despite dress and beard she was quite aware he was far handsomer than even Procles.
”I beg pardon, _kyrie_,”-she said ”_kyrie_” by instinct,-”I'm only an honest maid. Dion is terribly extortionate.” She cast down her eyes, expecting instant succour from the susceptible seaman, but to her disgust she saw he was admiring only the babe, not herself.
”Ah! G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, what a beautiful child! A girl?”
”A boy,” answered Niobe, almost sullenly.
”Blessed the house in Trzene then that can boast of such a son.”
”Oh, he's not Trzenian, but one of the exiles from Athens,” volunteered Dion, who kept all the t.i.ttle-tattle of the little city in stock along with his philtres.
”An Athenian! Praised be Athena Polias, then. I am from Athens myself. And his father?”
”The brat will never boast of his father,” quoth Dion, rolling his eyes.
”He left the world in a way, I wager five minae, the mother hopes she can hide from her darling, but the babe's of right good stock, an Alcmaeonid, and the grandfather is that Hermippus-”
”Hermippus?” The stranger seemed to catch the word out of Dion's mouth. A donkey had broken loose at the upper end of the Agora; he turned and stared at it and its pursuers intently.
”If you're Athenian,” went on the soothsayer, ”the story's an old one-of Glaucon the Traitor.”
The stranger turned back again. For a moment Dion saw he was blinking, but no doubt it was dust. Then he suddenly began to fumble in his girdle.
”What do you want, girl?” he demanded of Niobe, nigh fiercely.
”Two obols.”
”Take two drachmae. I was once a friend to that Glaucon, and traitor though he has been blazed, his child is yet dear to me. Let me take him.”
Without waiting her answer he thrust the coin into her hands, and caught the child out of them. Phnix looked up into the strange, bearded face, and deliberated an instant whether to crow or to weep. Then some friendly G.o.d decided him. He laughed as sweetly, as musically, as ever one can at his most august age. With both chubby hands he plucked at the black beard and held tight. The strange sailor answered laugh with laugh, and released himself right gayly. Then whilst Niobe and Dion watched and wondered they saw the sailor kiss the child full fifty times, all the time whispering soft words in his ear, at which Phnix crowed and laughed yet more.
”An old family servant,” threw out Dion, in a whisper.
”Sheep!” retorted the nurse, ”do you call yourself wise? Do you think a man with that face and those long hands ever felt the stocks or the whip?
He's gentleman born, by Demeter!”
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