"You are right," said Hermas. "I am tired. We have been going on
stupidly in this house, as if nothing were possible but what my
father had done before me. There is nothing original in being rich,
and well fed, and well dressed. Thousands of men have tried it, and
have not been very well satisfied. Let us do something new. Let us
make a mark in the world."

"It is well said," nodded the old man; "you are speaking again like
a man after my own heart. There is no folly but the loss of an
opportunity to enjoy a new sensation."

From that day Hermas seemed to be possessed with a perpetual haste,
an uneasiness that left him no repose. The summit of life had been
attained, the highest possible point of felicity. Henceforward the
course could only be at a level--perhaps downward. It might be
brief; at the best it could not be very long. It was madness to lose
a day, an hour. That would be the only fatal mistake: to forfeit
anything of the bargain that he had made. He would have it, and hold
it, and enjoy it all to the full. The world might have nothing
better to give than it had already given; but surely it had many
things that were new to bestow upon him, and Marcion should help him
to find them.

Under his learned counsel the House of the Golden Pillars took on a
new magnificence. Artists were brought from Corinth and Rome and
Byzantium to adorn it with splendour. Its fame glittered around the
world. Banquets of incredible luxury drew the most celebrated guests
into its triclinium, and filled them with envious admiration. The
bees swarmed and buzzed about the golden hive. The human insects,
gorgeous moths of pleasure and greedy flies of appetite, parasites
and flatterers and crowds of inquisitive idlers, danced and
fluttered in the dazzling light that surrounded Hermas.

Everything that he touched prospered. He bought a tract of land in
the Caucasus, and emeralds were discovered among the mountains. He
sent a fleet of wheat-ships to Italy, and the price of grain doubled
while it was on the way. He sought political favour with the
emperor, and was rewarded with the governorship of the city. His
name was a word to conjure with.

The beauty of Athenais lost nothing with the passing seasons, but
grew more perfect, even under the inexplicable shade of
dissatisfaction that sometimes veiled it as a translucent cloud that
passes before the full moon. "Fair as the wife of Hermas" was a
proverb in Antioch; and soon men bega