A young girl-acrobat had just entered, who juggled with daggers and walked on her hands between the upright blades. As the attention of the guest was entirely absorbed by the lassie’s dangerous sport, Timon looked at Chrysis, and gradually, without being seen, manoevered so that he lay behind her at full length and touched her with his feet and mouth. “No,” said Chrysis in a low voice, “no, my friend.” But he had slipped his arm around her through the large slit in her robe and was carefully caressing the reclining courtesan’s delicate, burning skin. “Wait,” she implored. “We shall be seen. Bacchis will be angry.” ill-051 _She let herself slip down from the bed._ A glance convinced the young man that he was not being watched. He ventured upon a caress after which women rarely resist when once they have allowed things to go so far. Then, in order to quench by a decisive argument the last scruples of expiring modesty, he put his purse in her hand, which happened by chance to be open. Chrysis resisted no longer. Meanwhile the young acrobat continued her subtle and dangerous tricks. She walked upon her hands, with her skirt reversed, with her feet dangling in front of her head, between sharp swords and long keen blades. The effort occasioned by this critical posture, and perhaps also the fear of wounds, flooded her cheeks with dark warm blood, which heightened still further the glitter of her wide-open eyes. Her waist bent and straightened itself again. Her legs parted like the arms of a dancing girl. A violent respiration agitated her naked breast. “Enough,” said Chrysis briefly: “you have only excited me a little. Let us have no more of it. Leave me. Leave me.” And at the moment when the two Ephesians rose, according to the tradition, to play _The Fable of Hermaphroditus_, she let herself slip down from the bed and went out feverishly. III RHACOTIS Hardly had the door closed upon her than Chrysis pressed the inflamed centre of her desire with her hand as one presses a sore spot to relieve shooting pains. Then she leaned up against a column and twisted her fingers, groaning with anguish. She would never know anything, then! As the hours passed, the improbability of her success increased, became flagrant. Brusquely to ask for the mirror was a very risky method of discovering the truth. In case it should have been taken, she would attract the suspicions of all to herself, and would be lost. On the other hand, she had left the banqueting hall out of sheer impatience. Timon’s clumsinesses had merely served to exasperate her dumb rage. A trembling fit due to over-excitement compelled her to apply her whole body to the freshness of the smooth, monstrous column. She felt an attack coming on and was afraid. She called the slave Aretias: “Keep my jewels for me: I am going out.” And she descended the seven stone steps.