The city was thronged. Caravans returning from Ephesus had money to spend. Travelers from the Asian Desert going on to Ephesus wandered dazed amid the booths and shops, famed for their Tyrian purple damasks and gold-thread curtains and rugs of goat hair silky as finest fur. The plaza was a living mass of humanity clothed in brightest colors milling in endless circlings round the musicians under the central trees, who were paid by the city to give free entertainment to all visitors. The balconies of houses overhanging the city square began to open shutters; and dark eyes were seen above answering lovers’ signals below; but on the sill of one deep casement sat a girl alone. A rabble had gathered round a speaker in the city square. The speaker was short of stature, with thighs that had been lamed in war or accident, but he was clad in the black silk cloak of a man of distinction, and though his receding hair showed premature care, his forehead reflected the white light of an æsthetic; and as he declaimed, his eyes lighted up with a strange fire of faith. Near the speaker lounged a richly dressed, stout, prosperous Greek of the merchant class. He was not listening. He was watching with amused cynicism the changing concentrated expression of the girl’s intent face in the balcony above. The man twisted at the great emerald signet ring on his little finger. He clanked the sword dangling in its jeweled scabbard against the heel of his red morocco high boots. He stuck his thumbs in the gold sash belting his sky-blue silk jacket. Then he stroked his oiled curls projecting from the gold-and-blue turban cap. The girl’s eyes never once glanced his way. They were riveted as on a life and death messenger towards the little deformed orator round whom larger crowds were now pressing. The stout, middle-aged Greek dandy flushed angrily and stepped sharply up to the house door below the balcony. He lifted the brass knocker and rapped loudly. The knocker was a great Roman eagle. The door was opened by a middle-aged woman, clad in rich purple silk, and he was led to an inner court open to the sky in the middle of the house. A fountain played in the center of the court, and over the railing of the stone stairs leading to the chambers off the upper balcony clung vines and blooming flowers scenting the night air. “How now, my son, Thamyris?” smiled the middle-aged woman, showing teeth white as pearls between painted lips, and shaking the black jeweled pendants in her ears so they seemed part of the curls framing her ivory face. “Not son—yet,” answered the man irritably, “unless your daughter Thecla has eyes for her lover rather than that Jewish babbler ranting in the square there.”