"Pleasure never comes too late," replied Manlius bitterly, and allowed himself to be conducted through gardens, byways, and covered passages till his guide opened a small bronze gate, and taking him by the hand, led him through a dark corridor into a circular hall, adorned with pillars and lighted by a single round window above. Here the old woman left him and went to summon her mistress. Manlius looked around him. He had imagined the apartment of a Roman lady an entirely different room. He had expected to see jasper columns, garlanded with climbing plants, fountains perfumed with rose water, representations of frivolous love scenes, an atmosphere saturated with heavy fragrance, purple couches, and silver mirrors, and instead he found himself in a lofty, noble, temple-like hall, whose walls were adorned with masterly pictures of battles and heroes, while in the centre stood the marble bust of a bald-headed old man. "Perhaps Glyceria does not even live here," he thought, and just at that moment heard his name uttered behind him. He turned. Before him stood a pale, slender woman, in a simple snow-white robe, whose folds concealed her figure up to her chin and covered her arms to the wrists. This was not the alluring costume that suited a love adventure. The face was still less seductive. Deep, despairing, consuming grief, that blight of beauty, was expressed in every feature. Manlius recognised Glyceria. His blood rushed feverishly to his temples, and he convulsively clutched the hilt of his sword. Yet he did not wish to kill her thus. He thought that this, too, was only a new variety of the arts of temptation in which women are such adepts. When a libertine is to be attracted, the graces are called to aid; if it is a hero, Minerva must be summoned to help. Clothes, moods, will correspond with the character of the chosen individual; nay, even the features will be altered so that they will appear different to every one. He could not kill her while she looked so sad; he must await the moment when she began to speak to him of her love to thrust his sword into her heart at the first yearning smile. Pausing with drooping head, three paces from Manlius, the lady faltered almost too low for him to hear: "You have come late. Very late." Manlius, with suppressed fury, answered: "Is love a fruit that becomes overripe if it waits long?" Glyceria looked at Manlius in horror. "What is the matter with you that you speak to me of love?" "Did you not summon me that we might whisper together of rapture, bliss, and sweet delights?" "Once your words would have given me pleasure; now horror seizes me when you speak in this way." "Are you not convinced that your beauty has such magic power that every man who beholds you forgets every woman he has ever seen?" replied Manlius, half drawing his sword from its sheath. Glyceria looked into the youth's face as though she were gazing into impenetrable darkness, and asked: