The procession was drawing to an end.  Six women and girls in wreaths closed it, walking arm in arm with loud singing.  Pollux drew his sweetheart behind this jovial crew, threw his arm around Arsinoe once more, while she put hers round him, and then both of them stepped out in a brisk dance-step flinging their arms left free, throwing back their heads, shouting and singing loudly, and forgetting all that surrounded them; they felt as though they were bound to each other by a glory of sunbeams, while some god lifted them above the earth and bore them up through a realm of delight and joy beyond the myriad stars and through the translucent ether; thus they let themselves be led away through the Moon-street into the Canopic way and so back to the sea, and as far as the temple of Dionysus.

There they paused breathless and it suddenly struck them that he was Pollux and she Arsinoe, and that she must get back again to her father and the children.

“Come home,” she said softly, and as she spoke she dropped her arm and began to gather up her loosened hair.

“Yes, yes,” he said as if in a dream.  He released her, struck his hand against his brow, and turning to the open cella of the temple he said: 

“Long have I known that thou art mighty O Dionysus, and that thou O Aphrodite art lovely, and that thou art sweet O Eros! but how inestimable your gifts, that I have learnt to-day for the first time.”

“We were indeed full of the deity,” said Arsinoe.  “But here comes another procession and I must go home.”

“Then let us go by the Little Harbor,” answered Pollux.

“Yes—­I must pick the leaves out of my hair and no one will see us there.”

“I will help you—­”

“No, you are not to touch me,” said Arsinoe decidedly.  She grasped her abundant soft and shiny hair, and cleared it of the leaves that had got entangled in it, as tiny beetles do in a double flower.  Finally she hid her hair under her veil, which had slipped off her head long since, but, almost by a miracle, had caught and remained hanging on the brooch of her peplum.  Pollux stood looking at her, and overmastered by the passion that possessed him, he exclaimed: 

“Eternal gods! how I love you!  Till now my soul has been like a careless child, to-day it is grown to heroic stature.—­Wait—­only wait, it will soon learn to use its weapons.”

“And I will help it in the fight,” she said happily, as she put her hand through his arm again, and they hurried back to the old palace, dancing rather than walking.

The late December sun was already giving warning of his approaching rising by cold yellowish-grey streaks in the sky as Pollux and his companion entered the gate, which had long since been opened for the workmen.  In the hall of the Muses they took a first farewell, in the passage leading to the steward’s room, a second—­sad and yet most happy; but this was but a short one for the gleam of a lamp made them start apart, and Arsinoe instantly fled.