Page:Thotharomance00nichgoog.djvu/134

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A WEARY INTERVAL.
129

seen in the abode of horror and lust. Worse than all, she despised herself for the way in which she had in reality led up to such a climax.

Regretful thoughts succeeded one another rapidly. Thoth was evidently a great ruler, who had been accustomed to the most slavish obedience. He was, or had been, desirous of effecting a revolution in the treatment of women, and he had for months treated her with deference and tenderness. Had she rejected his proposal as calmly as it was made, had she not attempted to get fire from snow, at any rate he would have kept to his word and restored her to Greece. She ought to have understood how the nature of the man must have been distorted by his descent through generations of women-haters, and to have wondered at the advances which he had made instead of expecting the impossible.