I did so. She lowered her head to help me. I thought the time had come to effect an escape.
"Did you ever hear," said I, "the Eastern story of the man with the staff, the cock, and the pot?"
"There was once upon a time a man climbing a mountain. He had a pot hung on his arm and a cock in his hand. In the other hand he held a staff. On his way he perceived a young girl and invited her to climb the mountain with him. With some little show of reluctance she consented, but as they approached the last house on the mountainside she paused and said:
"'Because I fear that when we have gone beyond reach of these houses you will kiss me.'
"'Nay,' answered the man, 'do you not see that both hands are encumbered? In one hand I hold my staff; in the other is a cock and a pot hangs upon my arm.'
"The maiden smiled and they pursued their way. But when they were gone well up on their way the maiden stopped again and said:
"'Because I fear that now we are beyond reach of the houses, you will stick your staff in the ground; you will put your cock under your pot, and you will kiss me.'
"And the man did then at once stick his staff in the ground; he put the cock under the pot and kissed her--as indeed all along she meant he should."
She gradually edged away from me as I proceeded with my story, until at last she sank on the divan again.
When I had finished she said, "That is a very old story, and if you will permit me I shall get to work again."
I bowed very low and left her, feeling more humiliated than Neaera; and I wondered why it was that virtue, in the presence of vice, sometimes seems cheap and even ridiculous.
Chairo had been kept informed of what was happening to Lydia until the last day of the Eleusinian festival, and he believed that all danger of losing her was over. The appearance of Lydia, therefore, in the procession wearing the yellow veil was all the more a stupefying surprise to him. I was standing with him and Ariston as the procession passed, and was looking with eager and delighted interest at the gracefully draped figures that succeeded one another to the sound of music, which, with a subtle combination of majesty and grace, combined the plain chant of the Catholic liturgy with the lighter fugues of Bach, for in and out of great chords there ran intermingling strains of many voices, very light and delicate.
