“Ah, my pretty dears, what a good idea on the part of Naukrates to invite you both together this evening!”
“We congratulate ourselves on its being to your house that we are invited,” answered Chrysis without appearing to understand the innuendo. And, in order to say something venomous immediately, she added:
Doryclos was a young and extremely rich lover who had just deserted Bacchis to marry a Sicilian woman.
_“Ah, my pretty dears, what a good idea . . .”_
“I . . . I have turned him away,” said Bacchis, brazenly.
“Yes; they say he is going to marry out of spite. But I expect him the day after his marriage. He is madly in love with me.”
While asking: “How is Doryclos?” Chrysis had thought: “Where is your mirror?” But Bacchis did not look one in the face, and the only expression to be read in her eyes was a vague embarrassment devoid of meaning. Besides, there was time for Chrysis to elucidate this question, and, in spite of her impatience, she knew how to wait with resignation for a more favourable opportunity.
She was about to continue the conversation, when she was prevented by the arrival of Philodemos, Faustina, and Naukrates, which involved Bacchis in fresh interchanges of politeness. They fell into ecstasies over the poet’s embroidered garment and the diaphanous robe of his mistress. This young girl, being unfamiliar with Alexandrian usage, had thought to Hellenize herself in this manner, not knowing that a dress of the kind was inadmissible at a festival where hired dancing-women, similarly unclothed, were to appear.
Bacchis affected not to notice this error, and in a few amiable phrases complimented Faustina on her heavy blue hair swimming in brilliant perfumes. She wore her hair raised high above the neck in order to avoid staining her light silken stuffs with myrrh.
They were about to sit down to table when the seventh guest arrived; it was Timon, a young man whose want of principle was a natural gift, but who had discovered in the teaching of the philosophers of his time some superior reasons for self-satisfaction.
“I have brought someone with me,” he said laughing.
“Demo! What can you be thinking of, my dear fellow? She is a street girl. She can be had for a fig.”