"Are you happy?" Laodice asked in a low voice.
"Are you?" the Greek returned. "No," she went on after a pause. "A
woman has the less happy part in life, though the greater one, if she
will permit herself to make it great. It was not her purpose on earth
to be happy, but to make happy."
"You take issue with Philadelphus in that," Laodice interposed. "It is
his preachment to me that all that is expected of all mankind is to be
happy."
"He is a man, arguing from the man's view. It is inevitable law that
one must be gladder than another. Woman has the greater capacity for
suffering, hence her feeling for the suffering of others is the
quicker to respond. And some creature of the gods must be
compassionate, else creation long since had perished from the earth."
Laodice made no answer. This was new philosophy to her, who had been
taught only to aspire at great sacrifice as long as God gave her
strength. She could not know that this strange and purposeful creed
might some day appeal to her beyond her strength.
"Yet," Amaryllis added presently in a brighter tone, "there is much
that is sweet in the life of a woman."
Laodice played with the tassels of her girdle and did not look up.
What was all this to lead to?
"I have spoken to Philadelphus about you," the Greek continued. "He
has no doubt of this woman who hath established her claim to his name
by proofs but without the manner of the wife he expected. Yet he can
not turn her out. The siege hath put an end to your efforts in your
own behalf and it is time to face your condition and make the best of
it. John feels restive; I dare not ask too much of him. My household
was already full, before you came."
Laodice was looking at her, now with enlightenment in her face.
"Philadelphus," Amaryllis continued, following up her advantage, "is
nothing more than a man and you are very lovely."
"All this," Laodice said, rousing, "is to persuade me to--"
"There are two standards for women," the Greek interposed before
Laodice finished her indignant sentence. "Yours and another's. As
between yours, who would have love from him whom you have married, and
hers, who hath love from him whom she hath not married, there is only
the difference of a formula. Between her condition and yours, she is
the freer; between her soul and yours, she is the more willingly
faithful. If woman be born to a purpose, she fulfils it; if not she
hath not consecrated her life to a mistake. You overrate the
importance of marriage. It is your whole purpose to preserve yourself
for a ceremony. It is too much pains for too trivial an end. At least,
there are many things which are farther reaching and less selfish in
intent. And who, by the way, holds the longest claim on history? Your
kind or this other? The world does not perpetuate in its chronicles
the continence of women; it is too small, too personal, too common to
be noted. Cleopatra were lost among the horde of forgotten sovereigns,
had she wedded duly and scorned Mark Antony; Aspasia would have been
buried in a gynaeconitis had she wedded Pericles, and Sappho--but the
list is too long; I will not bury you in testimony."