My indignation rose to its height. I had heard my child taught to rebel. I had heard myself pronounced the slave of prejudice. But the open declaration that my authority was to be to my child a law no more let loose the whole storm of my soul. I rushed forward; Salome uttered a cry and sank senseless upon the ground. Constantius raised her up and bore her to a vase, from which he sprinkled water upon her forehead.
“Leave her!” I exclaimed; “better for her to remain in that insensibility, better to be dead than an apostate. Villain, begone! it is only in scorn that a father’s vengeance suffers you to live. Fly from this house, from this country. Go, traitor, and let me never see you more.”
I tore the fainting girl from his arms. He made no resistance, no reply. Salome recovered with a gush of tears, and feebly pronounced his name.
“I am with you still, my love,” Constantius assured her.
She looked up and, as if she had then first seen me, sprang forward with a look of terror.
“Go,” said I, “go to your chamber, weak girl, and on your knees, atone for your disobedience, for your abandonment of the faith of your fathers. But no, it is impossible; you can not have been so guilty; this Greek—this foreign bringer-in of fables—this smooth intruder on the peace of families, can not have so triumphed over your understanding.”
“I have been rash, sir,” said Constantius loftily; “I may have been unwise, too, in my language; but I have been no deceiver. Not for the wealth of kings—not even for the more precious treasure of the heart I love—would I sully my lips with a falsehood.”
“Begone!” cried I; “I am insulted by your presence. Go and pervert others—hypocrite; or rather, take my contemptuous forgiveness and repent, in sackcloth and ashes, the basest crime of the basest mind. Come, daughter, and leave the baffled idolater to think of his crime.”
I was leading her away—she hesitated, and I cast her from me. Constantius, with his cheek burning and his eye flashing, approached her. My taunts had at length roused him.
“Now, Salome,” said he, haughtily glancing on me, “injured as I am, I disclaim an idle deference for an authority used only to give pain. You are my betrothed; you shall be my bride. Let us go forth and try our chance together through the world.”