Instantly an attendant, dressed in a short toga, appeared beside us and began to heap the table with dishes and wines. Until he was gone I contented myself with glancing at the strange scene about me. And it was lucky that I did so, for in passing, my eye happened to fall on the pillar immediately back of my companion. And in the side of it, at about the height of a man’s head, I saw a tiny horizontal slit, perhaps three inches long and half an inch high. It disappeared at once, leaving the face of the pillar smooth, but in the instance before it disappeared, I was certain that I had caught the glint of human eyes fixed on me. The girl leaned close to me suddenly, and in terror lest she should appeal for my help and get herself into trouble through the watcher, I began to compliment her upon her beauty, adding some drivel about its effect upon my own heart, which I thought the watcher might consider suitable for the occasion and the part I was supposed to be playing. The watcher was too close and the music too distant and too soft to attempt to warn her, then or later. The glance, at once hopeless and disdainful, which the girl gave me was a bitter thing to swallow, but I swallowed it for the good of us both and the others. Besides, the attendant was forever hovering near us, and I did not dare hazard even a glance out of keeping with my part. The rest of that banquet is not a pleasant memory, and I will not describe it in detail. After that first glance my companion responded with a kind of desperate gayety to my clumsy attempts to flirt with her. But a good deal of the time we watched the animated scene before us, eating and drinking automatically. The center of the floor was clear, and in this space between the tables daring but beautiful dance followed dance in a whirl of shimmering and sensuous color and movement. With one exception I knew no one of the men there and none of the girls. The exception, I saw with a start, was a very well known Senator. But I did not know him personally and my presence meant nothing to him. In spite of myself, the barbarous languor and sensuousness of the scene began to set strange visions running through my brain before long, and I sat up and turned to look at my companion. But there was nothing but despair in her eyes. I knew that, on such a quest, nothing but a drug of some kind could so turn my thoughts. But evidently I alone had been drugged, in spite of the fact that I had tasted the food carefully and drunk very sparingly of the wine. After that I neither ate nor drank anything at all, in spite of the persistent urging of both my companion and the attendant who served us. As time passed, one or two of the men around me became over-attentive to their companions. But evidently anything of that kind was barred here at least, for they were instantly and firmly, though courteously dissuaded by the attendants waiting on them.