ng
inwardly to think that Pratinas should dare to assume the name of a
"lover of learning."

"When you are needed, I can tell you," snapped Valeria, sharply, at
the feeble remonstrance. "Now, Semiramis, you may arrange my hair."

The girl looked puzzled. To tell the truth, Valeria was speaking in a
tongue that was a babel of Greek and Latin, although she fondly
imagined it to be the former, and Semiramis could hardly understand
her.

"If your ladyship will speak in Latin," faltered the maid.

"Speak in Latin! Speak in Latin!" flared up Valeria. "Am I deceived?
Are you not Greeks? Are you some ignorant Italian wenches who can't
speak anything but their native jargon? Bah! You've misplaced a curl.
Take that!" And she struck the girl across the palms, with the flat of
her silver mirror. Semiramis shivered and flushed, but said nothing.

"Do I not have a perfect Greek pronunciation?" said the lady, turning
to Pratinas. "It is impossible to carry on a polite conversation in
Latin."

"I can assure your ladyship," said the Hellene, with still another
bland smile, "that your pronunciation is something exceedingly
remarkable."

Valeria was pacified, and lay back submitting to her hairdressers[40],
while Pratinas, who knew what kind of "philosophy" appealed most to
his fair patroness, read with a delicate yet altogether admirable
voice, a number of scraps of erotic verse that he said friends had
just sent on from Alexandria.

[40] _Ornatrices_.

"Oh! the shame to call himself a philosopher," groaned the neglected
Pisander to himself. "If I believed in the old gods, I would invoke
the Furies upon him."

But Valeria was now in the best of spirits. "By the two
Goddesses,"[41] she swore, "what charming sentiments you Greeks can
express. Now I think I look presentable, and can go around and see
Papiria, and learn about that dreadful Silanus affair. Tell Agias to
bring in the cinnamon ointment. I will try that for a change. It is in
the murrhine[42] vase in the other room."

[41] Demeter and Persephone, a Greek woman's oath.

[42] A costly substance, probably porcelain agate.

Iasus the serving-boy stepped into the next apartment, and gave the
order to one of his fellow slaves. A minute later there was a crash.
Arsinoe, who was without, screamed, and Semiramis, who thrust her head
out the door, drew it back with a look of dismay.

"What has happened?" cried Valeria, startled and angry.

Into the room came Ars