‘Egypt,’ replied Arbaces, ’is the mother of Athens.  Her tutelary Minerva is our deity; and her founder, Cecrops, was the fugitive of Egyptian Sais.  This have I already taught to her; and in my blood she venerates the eldest dynasties of earth.  But yet I will own that of late some uneasy suspicions have crossed my mind.  She is more silent than she used to be; she loves melancholy and subduing music; she sighs without an outward cause.  This may be the beginning of love—­it may be the want of love.  In either case it is time for me to begin my operations on her fancies and her heart:  in the one case, to divert the source of love to me; in the other, in me to awaken it.  It is for this that I have sought you.’

‘And how can I assist you?’

’I am about to invite her to a feast in my house:  I wish to dazzle—­to bewilder—­to inflame her senses.  Our arts—­the arts by which Egypt trained her young novitiates—­must be employed; and, under veil of the mysteries of religion, I will open to her the secrets of love.’

’Ah! now I understand:—­one of those voluptuous banquets that, despite our dull vows of mortified coldness, we, the priests of Isis, have shared at thy house.’

’No, no!  Thinkest thou her chaste eyes are ripe for such scenes?  No; but first we must ensnare the brother—­an easier task.  Listen to me, while I give you my instructions.’

Chapter V

More of the flower-girl.  The progress of love.

The sun shone gaily into that beautiful chamber in the house of Glaucus, which I have before said is now called the ‘Room of Leda’.  The morning rays entered through rows of small casements at the higher part of the room, and through the door which opened on the garden, that answered to the inhabitants of the southern cities the same purpose that a greenhouse or conservatory does to us.  The size of the garden did not adapt it for exercise, but the various and fragrant plants with which it was filled gave a luxury to that indolence so dear to the dwellers in a sunny clime.  And now the odorous, fanned by a gentle wind creeping from the adjacent sea, scattered themselves over that chamber, whose walls vied with the richest colors of the most glowing flowers.  Besides the gem of the room—­the painting of Leda and Tyndarus—­in the centre of each compartment of the walls were set other pictures of exquisite beauty.  In one you saw Cupid leaning on the knees of Venus; in another Ariadne sleeping on the beach, unconscious of the perfidy of Theseus.  Merrily the sunbeams played to and fro on the tessellated floor and the brilliant walls—­far more happily came the rays of joy to the heart of the young Glaucus.

‘I have seen her, then,’ said he, as he paced that narrow chamber—­’I have heard her—­nay, I have spoken to her again—­I have listened to the music of her song, and she sung of glory and of Greece.  I have discovered the long-sought idol of my dreams; and like the Cyprian sculptor, I have breathed life into my own imaginings.’