The youth’s handsome face was freed from soot, but his eyes were bent in confusion on the ground, and he sometimes pressed his hand upon his aching brow.  It needed all the old philosopher’s skill in persuasion to induce him to speak, and Philotas, before he began, begged Helena to leave the room.

He intended to adhere strictly to the truth, though he feared that the reckless deed into which he had suffered himself to be drawn might have a fatal effect upon his future life.

Besides, he hoped to obtain wise counsel from the architect, to whom he owed his speedy recovery, and whose grave, kindly manner inspired him with confidence; and, moreover, he was so greatly indebted to Didymus that duty required him to make a frank confession—­yet he dared not acknowledge one of the principal motives of his foolish act.

The plot into which he had been led was directed against Barine, whom he had long imagined he loved with all the fervour of his twenty years.  But, just before he went to the fatal banquet, he had heard that the young beauty was betrothed to Dion.  This had wounded him deeply; for in many a quiet hour it had seemed possible to win her for himself and lead her as his wife to his home in Amphissa.  He was very little younger than she, and if his parents once saw her, they could not fail to approve his choice.  And the people in Amphissa!  They would have gazed at Barine as if she were a goddess.

And now this fine gentleman had come to crush his fairest hopes.  No word of love had ever been exchanged between him and Barine, but how kindly she had always looked at him, how willingly she had accepted trivial services!  Now she was lost.  At first this had merely saddened him, but after he had drunk the wine, and Antyllus, Antony’s son, in the presence of the revellers, over whom Caesarion presided as “symposiarch”—­[Director of a banquet.]—­had accused Barine of capturing hearts by magic spells, he had arrived at the conviction that he, too, had been shamefully allured and betrayed.

He had served for a toy, he said to himself, unless she had really loved him and merely preferred Dion on account of his wealth.  In any case, he felt justified in cherishing resentment against Barine, and with the number of goblets which he drained his jealous rage increased.

When urged to join in the escapade which now burdened his conscience he consented with a burning brain in order to punish her for the wrong which, in his heated imagination, she had done him.

All this he withheld from the older men and merely briefly described the splendid banquet which Caesarion, pallid and listless as ever, had directed, and Antyllus especially had enlivened with the most reckless mirth.

The “King of kings” and Antony’s son had escaped from their tutors on the pretext of a hunting excursion, and the chief huntsman had not grudged them the pleasure—­only they were obliged to promise him that they would be ready to set out for the desert early the next morning.