the Phrygians, and the two
Ethiopians began to put away the vessels with perfumes. But at that
moment, and beyond the curtain of the frigidarium, appeared the heads
of the balneatores, and a low "Psst!" was heard. At that call one of
the Grecians, the Phrygians, and the Ethiopians sprang up quickly, and
vanished in a twinkle behind the curtain. In the baths began a moment of
license which the inspector did not prevent, for he took frequent part
in such frolics himself. Petronius suspected that they took place; but,
as a prudent man, and one who did not like to punish, he looked at them
through his fingers.

In the unctorium only Eunice remained. She listened for a short time
to the voices and laughter which retreated in the direction of the
laconicum. At last she took the stool inlaid with amber and ivory,
on which Petronius had been sitting a short time before, and put it
carefully at his statue. The unctorium was full of sunlight and the hues
which came from the many-colored marbles with which the wall was faced.
Eunice stood on the stool, and, finding herself at the level of the
statue, cast her arms suddenly around its neck; then, throwing back her
golden hair, and pressing her rosy body to the white marble, she pressed
her lips with ecstasy to the cold lips of Petronius.

Chapter II

After a refreshment, which was called the morning meal and to which the
two friends sat down at an hour when common mortals were already long
past their midday prandium, Petronius proposed a light doze. According
to him, it was too early for visits yet. "There are, it is true,"
said he, "people who begin to visit their acquaintances about sunrise,
thinking that custom an old Roman one, but I look on this as barbarous.
The afternoon hours are most proper,--not earlier, however, than that
one when the sun passes to the side of Jove's temple on the Capitol and
begins to look slantwise on the Forum. In autumn it is still hot, and
people are glad to sleep after eating. At the same time it is pleasant
to hear the noise of the fountain in the atrium, and, after the
obligatory thousand steps, to doze in the red light which filters in
through the purple half-drawn velarium."

Vinicius recognized the justice of these words; and the two men began
to walk, speaking in a careless manner of what was to be heard on
the Palatine and in the city, and philosophizing a little upon life.
Petronius withdrew then to the cubiculum, but did not s