"
"There is something in that. What was the book?" he asked.
Her steady eyes looked straight into his as she replied: "It was
Kingsley's 'Heroes' and if only I were a boy I would be like Perseus and
go and kill the Gorgon and rescue Andromeda from the sea monster. Pallas
Athene said some fine things to him--do you remember?--when she asked
him the question of which sort of man he would be."
"No, I don't remember," said John Derringham. "You must tell me now."
Then Halcyone began in a soft dream voice while her eyes widened and
darkened with that strange look as though she saw into another and
vaster world. "'I am Pallas Athene and I know the thoughts of all men's
hearts, and discern their manhood or their baseness. And from the souls
of clay I turn away; and they are blest, but not by me. They fatten at
ease like sheep in the pasture and eat what they did not sow, like oxen
in the stall. They grow and spread like the gourd along the ground, but
like the gourd they give no shade to the traveler and when they are ripe
death gathers them, and they go down unloved into hell, and their name
vanishes out of the land.
Pages:
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93