Absurd, absurd! God
bless her, she's happy now. I swear to you that I meant to do her honour--
and directly I found out what she really wanted, I would have given it
her. You'll not believe that I was such a fool as to suppose she could
feel happy with my ideas of wedded life--but I did. Oh, Heavens! Poor
dear, affectionate, simple soul, she felt naked! She shivered at her own
plight, and wondered why I'd been so unkind to her, seeing I was by
ordinary so kind. I shudder to think what she must have gone through."
"But," she said, anxious to save him, "but she knew what your beliefs
were--and accepted them. You told me so."
"Queen Mab," he said gravely, "she was a woman, not a fairy. And please to
observe the difference. She, poor dear, felt as if she was stripped until
she married. You will feel stripped when you do. Yet you both do it for
the same reason. She obeys the law because she dare not break it; you
because you choose to keep it. Despoina! Despoina!"
She laughed, a little awry. "You used to call me Artemis. I'm not she any
more."
"You are all the goddesses. You do what you please. Your mind is of
Artemis; you have the form of Demeter, the grave-eyed spirit of the corn--
and your gown, I observe, is blue, as hers was.
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