'Think not, my sweet pupil, if so I may call you, that I wish to shackle that liberty you adorn while you assume: but which, if not greater, as you rightly observe, than that possessed by the Roman women, must at least be accompanied by great circumspection, when arrogated by one unmarried. Continue to draw crowds of the gay, the brilliant, the wise themselves, to your feet--continue to charm them with the conversation of an Aspasia, the music of an Erinna--but reflect, at least, on those censorious tongues which can so easily blight the tender reputation of a maiden; and while you provoke admiration, give, I beseech you, no victory to envy.' 'What mean you, Arbaces?' said Ione, in an alarmed and trembling voice: 'I know you are my friend, that you desire only my honour and my welfare. What is it you would say?' 'Your friend--ah, how sincerely! May I speak then as a friend, without reserve and without offence?' 'I beseech you do so.' 'This young profligate, this Glaucus, how didst thou know him? Hast thou seen him often?' And as Arbaces spoke, he fixed his gaze steadfastly upon Ione, as if he sought to penetrate into her soul. Recoiling before that gaze, with a strange fear which she could not explain, the Neapolitan answered with confusion and hesitation: 'He was brought to my house as a countryman of my father's, and I may say of mine. I have known him only within this last week or so: but why these questions?' 'Forgive me,' said Arbaces; 'I thought you might have known him longer. Base insinuator that he is!' 'How! what mean you? Why that term?' 'It matters not: let me not rouse your indignation against one who does not deserve so grave an honour.' 'I implore you speak. What has Glaucus insinuated? or rather, in what do you suppose he has offended?' Smothering his resentment at the last part of Ione's question, Arbaces continued: 'You know his pursuits, his companions his habits; the comissatio and the alea (the revel and the dice) make his occupation; and amongst the associates of vice how can he dream of virtue?' 'Still you speak riddles. By the gods! I entreat you, say the worst at once.' 'Well, then, it must be so. Know, my Ione, that it was but yesterday that Glaucus boasted openly--yes, in the public baths--of your love to him. He said it amused him to take advantage of it. Nay, I will do him justice, he praised your beauty. Who could deny it? But he laughed scornfully when his Clodius, or his Lepidus, asked him if he loved you enough for marriage, and when he purposed to adorn his door-posts with flowers?' 'Impossible! How heard you this base slander?' 'Nay, would you have me relate to you all the comments of the insolent coxcombs with which the story has circled through the town? Be assured that I myself disbelieved at first, and that I have now painfully been convinced by several ear-witnesses of the truth of what I have reluctantly told thee.'