But you have only one thing I care to possess--that which I have, by
God's help, been enabled to save to-day. If I must ask a gift, give me
Eveena herself."
Utilitarianism has extinguished in Mars the use of compliment and
circumlocution; and until I concluded, their looks of mild perplexity
showed that neither Zulve nor her husband caught my purpose. I
fancied--for, not daring to look them in the face, I had turned my
downcast glance on Eveena--that she had perhaps somewhat sooner
divined the object of my thoughts. However, a silence of surprise--was
it of reluctance?--followed, and then Zulve bent over her daughter and
looked into her half-averted face, while Esmo answered--
"What you should ask I promised to give; what you have asked I give,
in so far as it is mine to give, in willing fulfilment of my pledge.
But, of course, what I can give is but my free permission to my
daughter to answer for herself. You will be, I hope, within a few days
at furthest, one of those in whose possession alone a woman of my
house could be safe or content; and, free by the law of the land to
follow her own wish, she is freed by her father's voice from the rule
which the usage of ten thousand years imposes on the daughters of our
brotherhood.
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