A din of voices and the clattering of money falling on the floor attracted her attention. It was Theano who, in order to parody her sister, had bethought her to caricature the “Fable of Danaë,” simulating a mad ecstasy of voluptuous delight every time a golden coin penetrated her. The child’s daring impiety amused all the guests, for they were no longer in the days when the thunderbolt would have exterminated those who scoffed at the Immortal One. But the sport degenerated, as might have been foreseen. A clumsy fellow hurt the poor little thing, and she fell to weeping noisily. It was necessary to invent a new amusement to console her. Two dancing-girls pushed into the centre of the room an immense silver-gilt bowl filled to the top with wine. Then somebody seized Theano by the feet, and made her drink with her head downwards. This convulsed her with a fit of laughter which she was unable to master. This idea was such a success that everybody crowded around, and when the flute-girl was set on her feet again, the sight of her little face purple with congestion and dripping with wine, produced such a general hilarity that Bacchis said to Selene: “A mirror! a mirror! let her see herself!” The slave brought a bronze mirror. “No, not that one. The mirror of Rhodopis. She merits it.” ill-055 Chrysis sprang up with a bound. The blood spurted to her cheeks, then retired again, and she remained perfectly pale, with the beatings of her heart battering her breast, and her eyes fixed on the door through which the slave had disappeared. That instant was to decide her whole life. Her last hope was either to vanish or be realised. The fête continued all around her. An iris wreath, thrown from somewhere or other, fell upon her lips. A man broke a little phial of perfume over her hair. It ran down too quickly and wetted her shoulders. The splashes of wine from a full tankard into which somebody had thrown a pomegranate spotted her silk tunic and penetrated to the skin. She bore all the traces of the orgie magnificently. The slave who had gone out did not return. Chrysis remained stone-pale, motionless as a sculptured goddess. The rhythmic and monotonous wail of a woman in travail of love not far away marked the passage of time for her. It seemed to her that this woman had been moaning thus since the night before. She could have twisted something, broken her fingers, shouted. At last Selene came back, empty-handed. “The mirror?” asked Bacchis. “It . . . It has gone . . . it . . . has been . . . stolen,” stammered the servant. Bacchis uttered a cry so piercing that all ceased speaking, and a frightful silence brusquely interrupted the tumult. Men and women crowded round her from all parts of the vast chamber, leaving a little space in the centre which was occupied by the distracted Bacchis and the kneeling slave. “What! What!” she shrieked. And as Selene did not answer, she seized her violently by the neck: