A crescent moon lighted the paths, which were strewed with shells; the shrubs and trees in the garden threw sharply-defined shadows on their gleaming whiteness, the sea sparkled brightly, and as soon as the porter had left the happy young pair together, and they found themselves in a shadowy alley, Pollux said, opening his arms to the girl: 

“Now—­one more kiss, just for a remembrance, while I wait.”

“Not now,” begged Arsinoe.

“I am no longer happy since we came in here.  I cannot help thinking of poor Selene.”

“I have not a word to say against that,” replied Pollux submissively.  “Then when waiting is over may I have my reward?”

“No, no, now, at once,” cried Arsinoe throwing herself on his breast, and then she hurried towards the house.

He followed her, and when she paused in front of a brightly-lighted window on the ground floor, he stopped also.  They both looked in on a lofty and spacious room, kept in the most perfect order and cleanliness; it had one door only opening on the roofless forecourt of the house; the walls of the room were plainly painted of a light green color, and the only ornament it contained was one piece of carved work over the door.

On the farther side stood the bed on which Selene was lying; a few paces from it sat the deformed girl asleep, while dame Hannah softly went up to the patient with a wet compress in her hand which she carefully laid on her head.

Pollux touched Arsinoe and whispered to her: 

“Your sister lies there in her sleep like an Ariadne deserted by Dionysus.  How wretched she will feel when she comes to herself.”

“She looks to me less pale than usual.”

“Look now, how she bends her arm, and what a lovely attitude as she puts her hand to her head!”

“Go—­” said Arsinoe.  “You ought not to be spying here.”

“Directly, directly—­but if you were lying there no power should stir me from the spot.  How carefully Hannah lifts the wet wrapper from her poor broken ankle.  You could not touch your eye more gently than the good woman handles Selene’s foot.”

“Go back, she is looking straight this way.”

“What a wonderful face!  It would do for a Penelope, but there is something singular in her eyes.  Now if I had to make another star-gazing Urania, or a Sappho full of the deity, and with eyes fixed on the heavens in poetic rapture, that is what I would put into her!  She is no longer young, but how pure her face is!  It is like a sky when the wind has swept it clear of clouds.”

“Seriously you must go now,” said Arsinoe drawing away her hand, which he had again taken.  Pollux saw that his praise of another woman’s beauty annoyed her, and he said soothingly: 

“Be easy child.  You have not your match here in Alexandria, no, nor so far as Greek is spoken.  A perfectly clear sky is certainly not the most beautiful to my taste.  Pure light, and pure blue, give no satisfaction to the artist, it is only behind a few moving clouds, lighted up by changing gleams of gold and silver, that the firmament has any true charm, and though your face too is like heaven to me it does not lack sweet movement, never twice alike.  Now this matron—­”