At these words all the color fled from Selene’s cheeks, and her pale lips brought out the words: 

“Pollux?  The son of Euphorion, Pollux the sculptor?”

“Yes, our dear, kind, tall Pollux!” cried Arsinoe.  “Now prick up your ears, and you shall hear how it all came to pass.  Last night on our way to see you he confessed how much he loved me, and now you must advise me how to win over my father to our side, and very soon too.  By-and-bye he will of course say yes, for Pollux can do anything he wants, and some day he will be a great man, as great as Papias, and Aristaeus, and Kealkes all put together.  His youthful trick with that silly caricature—­but how pale you are, Selene!”

“It is nothing—­nothing at all—­a pain—­go on,” said Selene.

“Dame Hannah begged me not to let you talk much.”

“Only tell me everything; I will be quiet.”

“Well, you have seen the lovely head of mother that he made,” Arsinoe went on.  “Standing by that we saw each other and talked for the first time after long years, and I felt directly that there was not a dearer man than he in the whole world, wide as it is.  And he fell in love too with a stupid little thing like me.  Yesterday evening he came here with me; and then as I went home, taking his arm in the dark through the streets, then—­Oh, Selene, it was splendid, delightful!  You cannot imagine!—­Does your foot hurt you very much, poor dear?  Your eyes are full of tears.”

“Go on, tell me all, go on.”

And Arsinoe did as she was desired, sparing the poor girl nothing that could widen and deepen the wound in her soul.  Full of rapturous memories she described the place in the streets where Pollux had first kissed her.  The shrubs in the garden where she had flung herself into his arms, her blissful walk in the moonlight, and all the crowd assembled for the festival, and finally how, possessed by the god, they had together joined the procession, and danced through the streets.  She described, with tears in her eyes, how painful their parting had been, and laughed again, as she told how an ivy leaf in her hair had nearly betrayed everything to her father.  So she talked and talked, and there was something that intoxicated her in her own words.

How they were affecting Selene she did not observe.  How could she know that it was her narrative and no other suffering which made her sister’s lips quiver so sorrowfully?  Then, when she went on to speak of the splendid garments which Julia was having made for her, the suffering girl listened with only half an ear, but her attention revived when she heard how much old Plutarch had offered for the ivory cup, and that her father proposed to exchange their old slave for a more active one.

“Our good black mouse-catching old stork looks shabby enough it is true,” said Arsinoe, “still I am very sorry he should go away.  If you had been at home, perhaps father would have waited to consider.”