“It entered Phaon’s dove-cote and killed the young of his best pair of cropper pigeons.”

“It was a marten, not the good, kind creature.  You are unfriendly in all your acts, for when our brown hen flew over to you yesterday she was driven away with stones.  Did Phaon mistake her for a vulture with sharp beak and powerful talons?”

“A maid-servant drove her away, because, since your master has been ill and no longer able to attend to business, your poultry daily feeds upon our barley.”

“I’m surprised you don’t brand us as robbers!” cried Semestre.  “Yes, if you had beaten me yourself with a stick, you would say a dry branch of a fig or olive tree had accidentally fallen on my back.  I know you well enough, and Leonax, Alciphron’s son, not your sleepy Phaon, whom people say is roaming about when he ought to be resting quietly in the house, shall have our girl for his wife.  It’s not I who say so, but Lysander, my lord and master.”

“Your will is his,” replied Jason.  “Far be it from me to wound the sick man with words, but ever since he has been ill you’ve played the master, and he ought to be called the house-keeper.  Ay, you have more influence under his roof than any one else, but Aphrodite and Eros are a thousand times more powerful, for you rule by pans, spits, and soft pillows—­they govern hearts with divine, irresistible omnipotence.”

Semestre laughed scornfully, and, striking the hard stone floor with her myrtle-staff, exclaimed: 

“My spit is enough, and perhaps Eros is helping it with his arrows, for Xanthe no longer asks for your Phaon, any more than I fretted for a person now standing before me when he was young.  Eros loves harder work.  People who grow up together and meet every day, morning, noon, and night, get used to each other as the foot does to the sandal, and the sandal to the foot, but the heart remains untouched.  But when a handsome stranger, with perfumed locks and costly garments, suddenly meets the maiden, Aphrodite’s little son fits an arrow to his golden bow.”

“But he doesn’t shoot,” cried Jason, “when he knows that another shaft has already pierced the maiden’s heart.  Any man can win any girl, except one whose soul is filled with love for another.”

“The gray-headed old bachelor speaks from experience,” retorted Semestre, quickly.  “And your Phaon!  If he really loved our girl, how could he woo another or have her wooed for him?  It comes to the same thing.  But I don’t like to waste so many words.  I know our Xanthe better than you, and she no more cares for her playfellow than the column on the right side of the hearth yearns toward the one on the left, though they have stood together under the same roof so long.”

“Do you know what the marble feels?”

“Nothing, Jason, nothing at all; that is, just as much as Xanthe feels for Phaon.  But what’s that noise outside the door?”