hom you and I know so
intimately-would willingly give half of her kingdom to possess such a
figure and such a mien as this serving-girl. And then her eyes, as she
looked at me when she rose with that little gasping corpse in her arms,
and asked me what I wanted with her sister!

"There was an impressive and lurid glow in those solemn eyes, which
looked as if they had been taken out of some Medusa's head to be set in
her beautiful face. And there was a sinister threat in them too which
seemed to say: 'Require nothing of her that I do not approve of, or you
will be turned into stone on the spot.' She did not answer twenty words
to my questions, and when I once more tasted the fresh air outside,
which never seemed to me so pleasant as by contrast with that horrible
hole, I had learnt no more than that no one knew--or chose to know--in
what corner the fair Irene was hidden, and that I should do well to make
no further enquiries.

"And now, what will Philometor do? What will you advise him to do?"

"What cannot be got at by soft words may sometimes be obtained by a
sufficiently large present," replied Eulaeus. "You know very well that
of all words none is less familiar to these gentry than the little word
'enough'; but who indeed is really ready to say it?

"You speak of the haughtiness and the stern repellent demeanor of our
Hebe's sister. I have seen her too, and I think that her image might be
set up in the Stoa as a happy impersonation of the severest virtue: and
yet children generally resemble their parents, and her father was the
veriest peculator and the most cunning rascal that ever came in my way,
and was sent off to the gold-mines for very sufficient reasons. And for
the sake of the daughter of a convicted criminal you have been driven
through the dust and the scorching heat, and have had to submit to her
scorn and contemptuous airs, while I am threatened with grave peril on
her account, for you know that Cleopatra's latest whim is to do honor to
the Roman, Publius Scipio; he, on the other hand, is running after our
Hebe, and, having promised her that he will obtain an unqualified pardon
for her father, he will do his utmost to throw the odium of his robbery
upon me.

"The queen is to give him audience this very day, and you cannot know
how many enemies a man makes who, like me, has for many years been one
of the leading men of a great state. The king acknowledges, and with
gratitude, all that I have done for