‘I hear from a thousand lips that she is a second Helen,’ said Calenus; and he smacked his own lips, but whether at the wine or at the notion it is not easy to decide.

‘Yes, she has a beauty that Greece itself never excelled,’ resumed Arbaces.  ’But that is not all:  she has a soul worthy to match with mine.  She has a genius beyond that of woman—­keen—­dazzling—­bold.  Poetry flows spontaneous to her lips:  utter but a truth, and, however intricate and profound, her mind seizes and commands it.  Her imagination and her reason are not at war with each other; they harmonize and direct her course as the winds and the waves direct some lofty bark.  With this she unites a daring independence of thought; she can stand alone in the world; she can be brave as she is gentle; this is the nature I have sought all my life in woman, and never found till now.  Ione must be mine!  In her I have a double passion; I wish to enjoy a beauty of spirit as of form.’

‘She is not yours yet, then?’ said the priest.

’No; she loves me—­but as a friend—­she loves me with her mind only.  She fancies in me the paltry virtues which I have only the profounder virtue to disdain.  But you must pursue with me her history.  The brother and sister were young and rich:  Ione is proud and ambitious—­proud of her genius—­the magic of her poetry—­the charm of her conversation.  When her brother left me, and entered your temple, in order to be near him she removed also to Pompeii.  She has suffered her talents to be known.  She summons crowds to her feasts; her voice enchants them; her poetry subdues.  She delights in being thought the successor of Erinna.’

‘Or of Sappho?’

’But Sappho without love!  I encouraged her in this boldness of career—­in this indulgence of vanity and of pleasure.  I loved to steep her amidst the dissipations and luxury of this abandoned city.  Mark me, Calenus!  I desired to enervate her mind!—­it has been too pure to receive yet the breath which I wish not to pass, but burningly to eat into, the mirror.  I wished her to be surrounded by lovers, hollow, vain, and frivolous (lovers that her nature must despise), in order to feel the want of love.  Then, in those soft intervals of lassitude that succeed to excitement—­I can weave my spells—­excite her interest—­attract her passions—­possess myself of her heart.  For it is not the young, nor the beautiful, nor the gay, that should fascinate Ione; her imagination must be won, and the life of Arbaces has been one scene of triumph over the imaginations of his kind.’

’And hast thou no fear, then, of thy rivals?  The gallants of Italy are skilled in the art to please.’

’None!  Her Greek soul despises the barbarian Romans, and would scorn itself if it admitted a thought of love for one of that upstart race.’

‘But thou art an Egyptian, not a Greek!’