They cried their names as he passed, and some added protestations of their ardent natures or proposed an abnormal vice. Demetrios followed the road. He was preparing to choose at a venture, according to his habit, when a little girl entirely dressed in blue leaned her head upon her shoulder and said to him softly, without rising: “Is it quite out of the question?” The novelty of this mode of address made him smile. He stopped. “Open the door,” he said. “I choose you.” The little girl gleefully jumped to her feet and gave two raps with the phallus-shaped knocker. The door was opened by an old slave woman. “Gorgo,” said the little girl, “I have got somebody; quickly, get some cakes and Cretan wine, and make the bed.” She turned round to Demetrios. “You don’t want any satyrion?” “No,” said the young man laughing. “You have some?” “I have to keep it,” said the child. “I am asked for it oftener than you think. Come this way; be careful of the steps, one of them is worn. Go into my room. I shall be back in a moment.” The room was quite simple, like those of the novices. A great bed, a couch, a few seats and carpets composed all the scanty furniture; but through a large open bay there was a view over the gardens, the sea, the double harbour of Alexandria. Demetrios remained standing and looked at the distant city. Suns setting behind harbours! Incomparable glories of maritime cities, calm skies, purple waters! Upon what soul vociferous with joy or sorrow would you not cast a shroud of silence? What feet have not halted, what passions have not withered, what voices have not died away before you? . . . Demetrios looked; a swell of torrential flame seemed to issue from the sun, half dipping into the sea, and to flow straight to the left bend of the wood of Aphrodite. From horizon to horizon, the Mediterranean was flooded by the sumptuous purple spectrum which lay in sharply-defined bands of colour, golden red and dull violet side by side. Between this ever-shifting splendour and the peaty mirror of Lake Mareotis, stood the white mass of the town, bathed in red and violet reflexions. Its twenty thousand flat houses spreading in different directions picked it out marvellously with twenty thousand dashes of colour that underwent a perpetual metamorphosis according to the various phases of the setting luminary. The flaming sun shot forth rapid shafts, then was swallowed up, almost suddenly, in the sea, and with the first reflux of the night, there floated over the whole earth a thrill, a muffled breeze, uniform and transparent. “Here are figs, cakes, a piece of honeycomb, wine, a woman. Eat the figs while it is daylight and the woman when it is dark.” It was the little girl, laughing as she entered. She bade the young man sit down, mounted astride on his knees, and stretching her two arms behind her head, made fast a rose which was on the point of slipping down from her auburn hair.