comrades. They are maying. Seven girls.
(ANTONINUS _grips his scourge._) Her arms are full of may.

ANTONINUS: Speak not of such things. Speak not, I say.

[SATAN _is leaning leisurely against the wall, smiling through the
window._

SATAN: How the leaves are shining. Now she is seated on the grass. They
have gathered small flowers, Antoninus, and put them in her hair, a row
of primroses.

ANTONINUS (_his eyes go for a moment on to far, far places.
Unintentionally_): What colour?

SATAN: Black.

ANTONINUS: No, no, no! I did not mean her hair. No, no. I meant the
flowers.

SATAN: Yellow, Antoninus.

ANTONINUS (_flurried_): Ah, of course, yes, yes.

SATAN: Sixteen and seventeen and fifteen, and another of sixteen. All
young girls. The age for you, Antoninus, if I make you twenty. Just the
age for you.

ANTONINUS: You--you cannot.

SATAN: All things are possible unto me except salvation.

ANTONINUS: How?

SATAN: Give me your gaud. Then meet me at any hour between star-shining
and cock-crow under the big cherry tree, when the moon is waning.

ANTONINUS: Never.

SATAN: Ah, Spring, Spring. They are dancing. Such nimble ankles.

[ANTONINUS _raises his scourge._

SATAN (_more gravely_): Think, Antoninus, forty or fifty more Springs.

ANTONINUS: Never, never, never.

SATAN: And no more striving next time. See Antoninus, see them as they
dance, there with the may behind them under the hill.

ANTONINUS: Never! I will not look.

SATAN: Ah, look at them, Antoninus. Their sweet figures. And the warm
wind blowing in Spring.

ANTONINUS: Never! My scourge is for such.

[SATAN _sighs. The girls laugh from the hill._ ANTONINUS _hears the
laughter._

_A look of fear comes over him._

ANTONINUS: Which ... (_a little peal of girlish laughter off_). Which
cherry tree did you speak of?

SATAN: This one over the window.

ANTONINUS (_with an effort_): It shall be held accursed. I will warn the
brethren. It shall be cut down and hewn asunder and they shall burn it
utterly.

SATAN (_rather sorrowfully_): Ah, Antoninus.

ANTONINUS: You shall not tempt a monk of our blessed order.

SATAN: They are coming this way, Antoninus.

ANTONINUS: What! What!

SATAN: Have your scourge ready, Antoninus.

ANTONINUS: Perhaps, perhaps they have not merited extreme chastisement.

SATAN: They have made a garland of may, a long white garland drooped
from their little hands. Ah, if you were young, Antoninus.

ANTONINUS: