“The oftener you come the faster the work will advance.”

“And the more surely the Biamite women will point their fingers at me.”

“Yet you ventured here to-day, unasked, in the broad light of noon.”

“Because I wish to remind you myself that I shall expect you this evening.  Yesterday you did not appear; but to-day-I am right, am I not?—­to-day you will come.”

“With the greatest delight, if it is possible,” he answered eagerly.

A warmer glance from her dark eyes rested upon him.  The blood seethed in his veins, and as he extended both hands to her and ardently uttered her name, she rushed forward, clinging to him with passionate devotion, as if seeking assistance, but when his lips touched hers she shrank back and loosed her soft arms from his neck.

“What does this mean?” asked the sculptor in surprise, trying to draw her toward him again; but Ledscha would not permit it, pleading in a softer tone than before:  “Not now; but—­am I not right, dearest—­I may expect you this evening?  Just this once let the daughter of Archias yield to me, who loves you better.  We shall have a full moon to-night, and you have heard what was predicted to me—­to-night the highest bliss which the gods can bestow upon a mortal awaits me.”

“And me also,” cried Hermon, “if you will permit me to share it with you.”

“Then I will expect you on the Pelican Island—­just when the full moon is over the lofty poplars there.  You will come?  Not to the Owl’s Nest:  to the Pelican Island.  And though your love is far less, far cooler than mine, yet you will not defraud me of the best happiness of my life?”

“How could I?” he asked, as if he felt wounded by such distrust.  “What detains me must be something absolutely unavoidable.”

Ledscha’s eyebrows contracted sharply, and in a choked voice she exclaimed:  “Nothing must detain you—­nothing, whatever it may be!  Though death should threaten, you will be with me just at midnight.”

“I will, if it is possible,” he protested, painfully touched by the vehemence of her urging.  “What can be more welcome to me also than to spend happy hours with you in the silence of a moonlight night?  Besides, my stay in Tennis will not be long.”

“You are going?” she asked in a hollow tone.

“In three or four days,” he answered carelessly; “then Myrtilus and I will be expected in Alexandria.  But gently—­gently—­how pale you are, girl!  Yes, the parting!  But in six weeks at latest I shall be here again; then real life will first begin, and Eros will make the roses bloom for us.”

Ledscha nodded silently, and gazing into his face with a searching look asked, “And how long will this season of blossoming last?”

“Several months, girl; three, if not six.”

“And then?”

“Who looks so far into the future?”

She lowered her glance, and, as if yielding to the inevitable, answered:  “What a fool I was!  Who knows what the morrow may bring?  Are we even sure whether, six months hence, we shall not hate, instead of loving, each other?”