f feathers would be about as much use
against the drunken slaves as her black scarecrow, who had been falling
into decrepitude even before she had done the stupidest deed of her life
and roused the steward's anger against herself.

So they went along the dark streets which grew full of people the farther
they went, side by side in silence. Presently Pollux said:

"Put your arm through mine; you ought to feel that I am protecting you,
and I--I should like to feel at every step that I have found you once
more, and am allowed to be near you--so sweet a creature."

The words did not sound impertinent, on the contrary, they sounded very
much in earnest, and the sculptor's deep voice trembled with emotion as
he spoke them with deep tenderness. They knocked at the door of the
girl's heart with the urgent hand of love; she unhesitatingly put her
hand through his arm and answered softly:

"You will take care of me now."

"Yes," said he, and he took her little hand, which rested on his right
arm, in his left hand. She did not draw it away, and after they had gone
on thus for a few paces he sighed and said:

"Do you know how I feel?"

"Well!"

"Nay, I myself cannot put it into words. Rather as if I had triumphed in
the Olympian games, or as if Caesar had invested me with the purple!--But
who cares for the wealth or the purple! You are hanging on my arm, and I
have hold of your hand; compared with this, all is as nought. If it were
not for the people about I--I do not know what I could do."

She looked up at him with happy content, but he lifted her hand to his
lips and pressed it to them long and fervently. Then he let it go again
and said, with a sigh that came up from the bottom of his heart:

"Oh Arsinoe, my sweet Arsinoe, how I love you!"

As the words came softly yet hotly from his lips the girl clasped his arm
closely to her bosom, leaned her head on his shoulder, looked up at him
with a wide-eyed, tender gaze, and said softly:

"Oh Pollux, I am so happy, the world is so good!"

"Nay, I could hate it!" cried the sculptor. "To hear this--and to have an
old mother wide awake at home, and to be obliged to walk steadily on in a
street crowded with men--it is unendurable! I shall not hold out much
longer--sweetest of girls--here it is quiet and dark."

Yes, in a little nook made by two contiguous houses, and into which
Pollux drew Arsinoe, it was pitch dark, as he hastily pressed his first
kiss on her innocent lip