SATAN: Wait, brother, they are far off yet. But you would not scourge them, you would not scourge them, they are so ... Ah! one has torn her dress! ANTONINUS: Ah, let me scourge her! SATAN: No, no, brother. See, I can see her ankle through the rent. You would not scourge her. Your great scourge would break that little ankle. ANTONINUS: I will have my scourge ready, if she comes near our holy place. SATAN: She is with her comrades. They are maying. Seven girls. (ANTONINUS _grips his scourge._) Her arms are full of may. ANTONINUS: Speak not of such things. Speak not, I say. [SATAN _is leaning leisurely against the wall, smiling through the window._ SATAN: How the leaves are shining. Now she is seated on the grass. They have gathered small flowers, Antoninus, and put them in her hair, a row of primroses. ANTONINUS (_his eyes go for a moment on to far, far places. Unintentionally_): What colour? SATAN: Black. ANTONINUS: No, no, no! I did not mean her hair. No, no. I meant the flowers. SATAN: Yellow, Antoninus. ANTONINUS (_flurried_): Ah, of course, yes, yes. SATAN: Sixteen and seventeen and fifteen, and another of sixteen. All young girls. The age for you, Antoninus, if I make you twenty. Just the age for you. ANTONINUS: You--you cannot. SATAN: All things are possible unto me except salvation. ANTONINUS: How? SATAN: Give me your gaud. Then meet me at any hour between star-shining and cock-crow under the big cherry tree, when the moon is waning. ANTONINUS: Never. SATAN: Ah, Spring, Spring. They are dancing. Such nimble ankles. [ANTONINUS _raises his scourge._ SATAN (_more gravely_): Think, Antoninus, forty or fifty more Springs. ANTONINUS: Never, never, never. SATAN: And no more striving next time. See Antoninus, see them as they dance, there with the may behind them under the hill. ANTONINUS: Never! I will not look. SATAN: Ah, look at them, Antoninus. Their sweet figures. And the warm wind blowing in Spring. ANTONINUS: Never! My scourge is for such. [SATAN _sighs. The girls laugh from the hill._ ANTONINUS _hears the laughter._ _A look of fear comes over him._ ANTONINUS: Which ... (_a little peal of girlish laughter off_). Which cherry tree did you speak of? SATAN: This one over the window. ANTONINUS (_with an effort_): It shall be held accursed. I will warn the brethren. It shall be cut down and hewn asunder and they shall burn it utterly. SATAN (_rather sorrowfully_): Ah, Antoninus. ANTONINUS: You shall not tempt a monk of our blessed order. SATAN: They are coming this way, Antoninus. ANTONINUS: What! What! SATAN: Have your scourge ready, Antoninus. ANTONINUS: Perhaps, perhaps they have not merited extreme chastisement. SATAN: They have made a garland of may, a long white garland drooped from their little hands. Ah, if you were young, Antoninus. ANTONINUS: Tempt me not, Satan. I say, tempt me not!