At the other extreme of the table two citizens of advanced age, and Alcon the pacific Saguntine, with whom Actæon had spoken that morning on the esplanade of the Acropolis, were carrying on a quiet conversation. The two old men were long-time friends of the house, Greek merchants whom Sónnica had taken as partners in business, and whom she invited to her nocturnal feasts, appreciating the dignified air which they added to these occasions. As the devoted pair entered the banquet chamber the guests divined their felicity in Sónnica's tender, shining eyes, and in the abandon with which she inclined toward Actæon her blonde head, crowned with roses and violets. "At last we have a master," murmured Lachares with a tone of jealousy. "He has been more fortunate than we," replied the Celtiberian resignedly. "But he is an Athenian, and I can understand that Sónnica, the cold hearted, should have surrendered to one of her own people." Actæon, being presented to the guests, moved about the hall with the self-possession of a potentate enjoying his riches, like a man accustomed to princely splendors--he whom a stroke of fortune had suddenly lifted out of poverty to his old-time condition. At a signal from Sónnica the guests reclined upon the purple couches which surrounded the table, and four young girls entered the hall bearing on their heads, with the slender grace of canephoræ, little willow baskets filled with rose-crowns. They walked with airy ease, as if gliding over the mosaic to the sound of invisible flutes, and with their delicate girlish hands they crowned the guests with flowers. Suddenly the steward appeared with an irritated countenance. "Mistress, Euphobias the parasite is trying to enter." The guests burst into cries and protests on hearing this. "Throw him out, Sónnica! He will make us miserable!" shouted the young men, recalling with anger his jeers in the Forum at their dress and manners. "It is a shame for the city to tolerate that insolent beggar," said the grave citizens. Sónnica smiled, then suddenly recalling a cruel epigram which the parasite had dedicated to her, and had recited in the Forum a few days before, she said frigidly to the steward: "Drive him away with a club." The guests bathed their hands at a lavabo of perfumed water which a slave passed from couch to couch, and Sónnica had given the order to commence the banquet when the steward returned with a rough-knobbed club clutched in his hand. "I have beaten him, mistress, but he will not go. He suffers the blows, but after each one he works his way a little farther into the house." "And what does he say?" "He says that one of Sónnica's feasts is impossible without the presence of Euphobias, and that the blows are a sign of appreciation."