Then she again gazed into the distance.  Phaon shook his head, and both remained silent for several minutes.  At last he raised himself higher, turned his full face toward the young girl, gazed at her as tenderly and earnestly as if he wished to stamp her image upon his soul for life, gently pulled the long, floating sleeve of her peplum, and said: 

“I didn’t think it would be necessary—­but I must ask you something.”

While he spoke, Xanthe rested her right elbow on her knee, drummed on her scarlet lips with her fingers, and clasped the back of the marble bench with her out-stretched left arm.

Her eyes told him that she was ready to listen, though she still uttered no word of reply.

“I have a question to ask you, Xanthe!” continued Phaon.

“You?” interrupted the girl, with visible astonishment.

“I, who else?  Jason told me yesterday evening that our uncle Alciphron had wooed you for his son Leonax, and was sure of finding a favorable reception from old Semestre and your poor father.  I went at once to ask you if it were true, but turned back again, for there were other things to be done, and I thought we belonged to each other, and you could not love any one so well as you loved me.  I don’t like useless words, and cannot tell you what is in my heart, but you knew it long ago.  Now you are watching for your cousin Leonax.  We have never seen him, and I should think—­”

“But I know,” interrupted the girl, rising so hastily that her roses fell unheeded on the ground—­“but I know he is a sensible man, his father’s right-hand, a man who would disdain to riot all night with flute-playing women, and to woo girls only because they are rich.”

“I don’t do that either,” replied Phaon.  “Your flowers have dropped on the ground—­”

With these words the youth rose, bent over the roses, gathered them together, and offered them to Xanthe with his left hand, while trying to clasp her fingers in his right; but she drew back, saying: 

“Put them on the bench, and go up to wash the sleep from your eyes.”

“Do I look weary?”

“Of course, though you’ve lain here till noon.”

“But I have scarcely slept for several days.”

“And dare you boast of it?” asked Xanthe, with glowing cheeks.  “I am not your mother, and you must do as you choose, but if you think I belonged to you because we played with each other as children, and I was not unwilling to give you my hand in the dance, you are mistaken.  I care for, no man who turns day into night and night into day.”

At the last words Xanthe’s eyes filled with tears, and Phaon noticed it with astonishment.

He gazed at her sadly and beseechingly, and then fixed his eyes on the ground.  At last he began to suspect the cause of her anger, and asked, smiling: 

“You probably mean that I riot all night?”

“Yes!” cried Xanthe; she withdrew her hand for the second time, and half turned away.