So they went along the dark streets which grew full of people the farther they went, side by side in silence.  Presently Pollux said: 

“Put your arm through mine; you ought to feel that I am protecting you, and I—­I should like to feel at every step that I have found you once more, and am allowed to be near you—­so sweet a creature.”

The words did not sound impertinent, on the contrary, they sounded very much in earnest, and the sculptor’s deep voice trembled with emotion as he spoke them with deep tenderness.  They knocked at the door of the girl’s heart with the urgent hand of love; she unhesitatingly put her hand through his arm and answered softly: 

“You will take care of me now.”

“Yes,” said he, and he took her little hand, which rested on his right arm, in his left hand.  She did not draw it away, and after they had gone on thus for a few paces he sighed and said: 

“Do you know how I feel?”

“Well!”

“Nay, I myself cannot put it into words.  Rather as if I had triumphed in the Olympian games, or as if Caesar had invested me with the purple!—­But who cares for the wealth or the purple!  You are hanging on my arm, and I have hold of your hand; compared with this, all is as nought.  If it were not for the people about I—­I do not know what I could do.”

She looked up at him with happy content, but he lifted her hand to his lips and pressed it to them long and fervently.  Then he let it go again and said, with a sigh that came up from the bottom of his heart: 

“Oh Arsinoe, my sweet Arsinoe, how I love you!”

As the words came softly yet hotly from his lips the girl clasped his arm closely to her bosom, leaned her head on his shoulder, looked up at him with a wide-eyed, tender gaze, and said softly: 

“Oh Pollux, I am so happy, the world is so good!”

“Nay, I could hate it!” cried the sculptor.  “To hear this—­and to have an old mother wide awake at home, and to be obliged to walk steadily on in a street crowded with men—­it is unendurable!  I shall not hold out much longer—­sweetest of girls—­here it is quiet and dark.”

Yes, in a little nook made by two contiguous houses, and into which Pollux drew Arsinoe, it was pitch dark, as he hastily pressed his first kiss on her innocent lips; but in their hearts it was light-radiant sunshine.

She had thrown her arms round his neck and would willingly have clung to him till day should end; but they heard the approach of a noisy procession of slaves.  These unfortunate creatures began soon after midnight singing and shouting so as to avail themselves to the extremist limit of the holiday, which released them for a short time from their tasks and duties; Pollux knew well how unbounded the license of their pleasures could be, and as he walked on with Arsinoe he enjoined her to keep with him as close as possible to the houses.

“How jolly they are!” he said pointing to the merry-makers.  “Their masters will wait on themselves a little to-day, and the best day in the year is just beginning for them, but for us the best day in all our lives.”