"The auletai!" shouted the guests. Four slender girls, violet-crowned, marched into the triclinium, wearing a chiton open from waist to ankle, displaying the left leg at every step, holding to their mouths the double aulos, their agile fingers playing over the holes of the instrument. Standing in the space enclosed by the curve of the table, they began a sweet melopœia, which caused the guests to sit up in their couches and to smile placidly. Most of them recognized the flute players as old acquaintances, and swinging their heads in time with the music, they watched with avid eyes the outlines of their bodies which swayed rhythmically from the movement of their dancing feet. Several times the flutists changed the tune and measure, but at the end of an hour the guests became bored. "We are used to all this," protested Lachares; "they are the same flutists who always play at your banquets, Sónnica. Since you have fallen in love you forget your friends. Give us something else! Let us see the dancers!" "Yes, let the dancing girls come!" chorused the young men. "Have patience," said the Greek woman, lifting her head for an instant from Actæon's breast; "the dancers will appear, but not until the end of the banquet when I am overcome with sleep. I know you well, and I can guess what the finish of the feast will be. First I wish you to see a little slave who has learned from the Grecian mariners tricks like those of celebrated Athenian performers." Before the slave entered, the guests turned in alarm toward the farther end of the table. A beast-like growling arose from beneath it. Euphobias had fallen from his couch, and with his head on the mosaic was disgorging his dinner, accompanied by a stream of wine. "Give him laurel leaves!" called the prudent Alcon. "There is nothing better to dissipate drunkenness." The slaves compelled him almost by force to chew the leaves, paying no attention to the philosopher's protests. "I am not drunk," shouted Euphobias. "It is the hunger which persecutes me. Most of the time I can find no bread, and when I am so fortunate as to sit at a table like Sónnica's, the food which I eat escapes me." "Say rather the wine which you drink escapes you," replied Sónnica, resting her head again on Actæon's breast. The contortionist had reappeared before the table, and had greeted her mistress by touching her hands to her face. She was a girl of about fourteen, with yellowish skin, wearing a pair of red trunks. Her nervous and agile limbs, and her lean, undeveloped chest, made her look like a boy. The elder guests smiled, stirred by her fresh and almost masculine beauty.