What! A grandson of Menas, the brother of two martyrs for our glorious faith, married to a Melchite! The mere idea is sacrilege, is blasphemy; I can give it no milder name! I and your father will die childless before we consent! And it is for the love of this woman, whose heart is so cold that I shiver only to think of it--for this waif and stray, who has nothing but her ragged pride and the mere scrapings of a lost fortune, which never could compare with ours--for this thankless creature, who can hardly bring herself to bid me, your mother, such a civil good-morning--by Heaven it is the truth--as I can say to a slave--for her that I, that your parents are to be bereft of their son, the only child that a gracious Providence has left to be their joy and comfort?
No, no, never! Far be it from me! You, Orion, my heart's darling, you have been a wilful fellow all your life, but you cannot have such a perverse heart as to bring your old mother, who has kept you in her heart these four and twenty years, in sorrow to the grave and embitter your father's few remaining days--for his hours are numbered!--And all for the sake of this cold beauty, whom you have seen for a few hours these last two days.

You cannot have the heart to do this, my heart's treasure, no, you cannot!--But if you should in some accursed hour, I tell you--and I have been a tender mother to you all your life-but as surely as God shall be my stay and your father's in our last hour, I will tear all love for you out of my heart like a poisonous weed--I will, though that heart should break!" Orion put his arms round the excited woman, who lead freed herself from his embrace, laid his hand lightly on her lips and kissed her eyes, whispering in her ear: "I have not the heart indeed, and could scarcely find it." Then, taking both her hands, he looked straight into her face.
"Brrr!" he exclaimed, "your daredevil son was never so much frightened in his life as by your threats.

What dreadful words are these--and even worse were at the tip of your tongue! Mother--Mother Neforis! Your name means kindness, but you can be cruel, bitterly cruel!" Still he drew her fondly to him, and kissed her hair and brow and cheeks with eager haste, in a vehemence of feeling which came over him like a revulsion after the shock he had gone through; and when they parted he had given her leave to negotiate for little Katharina's hand on his behalf, and she had promised in return that it should be not on the morrow but the day after at soonest.

This delay seemed to him a sort of victory and when he found himself alone and reflected on what he had done in yielding to his mother, though his heart bled from the wounds of which he himself knew not the depth, he rejoiced that he had not bound Paula by any closer tie.

His eyes had indeed told her much, but the word "Love" had not passed his lips--and yet that was what it came to .-- But surely a cousin might be allowed to kiss the hand of a lovely relation.
She was a desirable woman--ah, how desirable!--and must ever be: but to quarrel with his parents for the sake of a girl, were she Aphrodite herself, or one of the Muses or the Graces--that was impossible! There were thousands of pretty women in the world, but only one mother; and how often had his heart beat high and won another heart, taken all it had to give, and then easily and quickly recovered its balance.
This time however, it seemed more deeply hit than on former occasions; even the lovely Persian slave for whose sake he had committed the wildest follies while yet scarcely more than a school-boy--even the bewitching Heliodora at Constantinople for whom he still had a tender thought, had not agitated him so strongly.