Six weeks later, early in the month of December, Heliodorus’ house glittered in the splendor of festal array. Garlands of leaves and flowers twined around the Corinthian pillars; countless lamps adorned the wide halls of the atrium and peristyle. A select company attired in fashionable costume, ladies in gaily-flowered pallas, with glittering diadems and gold pins among their curls, senators in purple-bordered holiday robes, rich merchants in Tyrian syntheses, and laurel-crowned poets, thronged the gleaming colonnades. Heliodorus was celebrating the marriage of his daughter Hero to Lucius Rutilius. The worthy Bononius, who had not shrunk from taking the long journey to distant Massilia to bring his friend back to the scene of his newly-restored happiness, was treated by the bride with almost greater attention than she bestowed upon the bridegroom--an incomprehensible enigma--and Lucius Rutilius, far from being seized with jealousy at this apparent neglect, also strove to show the young philosopher every token of the most cordial affection. Caius Bononius was evidently absent-minded. His heart had for some time been divided between satisfaction at the successful breaking of the spell which had weighed upon Hero and Rutilius, and another feeling that had ripened during the few days of his intercourse with Lydia. How it happened was doubtless known to Eros, the sole enchanter in whose omnipotence the sceptical Bononius found himself henceforth compelled to believe. In short, the young man desired nothing better than to gaze into Lydia’s deep, dark eyes, listen to her voice, or brush against her flowing stola while walking through the colonnades of the peristyle. Considering his past, it was extremely unphilosophical--but the fact could not be denied. Rutilius’ wedding afforded him ample opportunity to satisfy his longing in this respect. Lydia, too, who had at first been merely an admirer of his faithful friendship and untiring energy, gradually passed into another mood. After Hero’s departure from her father’s house the young girl felt strangely lonesome.... When she fancied that it would be very delightful if she, too, like Heliodorus’ daughter, could have a home of her own where she might rule as the wife of a handsome, wise, talented man, this imaginary husband unconsciously assumed the features of Caius Bononius.... So it was not one of the greatest marvels that Eros ever accomplished when, the following April, Bononius and Lydia were married.