She had thrown her arms so gladly, so much too gladly round the heathen lady—­for she had a loving heart and no one else had ever made it a return in kind—­and clinging closely to her she had said: 

“As you will; I will do whatever you like.”

Then Orpheus, too, had urged her to oblige Gorgo, and himself, and all of them; and it had seemed almost impossible to refuse the first request that the modest youth—­to whom she would willingly have granted anything and everything—­had ever made.  Still, she had held back; and in her anxious bewilderment, not daring to think or act, she had tried every form of excuse and postponement.  She would probably have been awkward enough about this, but Gorgo was content to press her no further, and when, after leaving the house, she had summoned up courage to refuse to enter the Temple of Isis, Karnis had only said:  “Be thankful that this gifted lady, the favorite of the Muses, should think you worthy to sing with her.  We will see about the rest by-and-bye.”

Now, in the watches of the sleepless night, she saw clearly the abyss above which she was standing.  She, like Judas, was on the point of betraying her Saviour; not indeed for money, but in obedience to the transient sound of an earthly voice, for the pleasure of exercising her art, to indulge a hastily-formed liking; nay, perhaps because it satisfied her childish vanity to find herself put on an equality with a lady of rank and wealth, and matched with a singer who had roused Karnis and Orpheus to such ardent admiration.

She was an enigma to herself; while passages out of the Bible crowded on her memory to reproach her conscience.

There lay Dada’s embroidered dress.  Worn for the first time this day, in a month it would be unpresentably shabby and then, ere long, flung aside as past wearing.  Like this—­just like this—­was every earthly pleasure, every joy of this brief existence.  Alas, she certainly was not happy here in Karnis’ sense of the word; but in the other world there were joys eternal, and she had only to deny herself the petty enjoyments of this life to secure unfailing and everlasting happiness in the next.  There she would find an endless flow of all her soul could desire, there perhaps she might be allowed to cool the lips of Gorgo, as Lazarus cooled those of the rich man.

She was quite clear now what her answer would be to-morrow, and, firmly resolved not to allow herself to think of singing in the Temple of Isis, she at last fell asleep just as the light began to dawn in the east.  She did not wake till late, and it was with downcast eyes and set lips that she went with Karnis and Orpheus to the house of Porphyrius.

CHAPTER VIII.