nced with open arms.

"Naughty Thais," he said, in a laughing voice, "whilst I was waiting for
you to come, do you know what I saw in this manuscript, written by the
gravest of Stoics? Precepts of virtue and noble maxims: No! On the staid
papyrus, I saw dance thousands and thousands of little Thaises. Each was
no bigger than my finger, and yet their grace was infinite, and all were
the only Thais. There were some who flaunted in mantles of purple and
gold; others, like a white cloud, floated in the air in transparent
drapery. Others again, motionless and divinely nude, the better to
inspire pleasure, expressed no thought. Lastly, there were two, hand in
hand; two so alike that it was impossible to distinguish one from
the other. Both smiled. The first said, 'I am love.' The other, 'I am
death.'"

Thus speaking, he pressed Thais in his arms, and not noticing the
sullen look in her downcast eyes, he went on adding thought to thought,
heedless of the fact that they were all lost upon her.

"Yes, when I had before my eyes the line in which it was written,
'Nothing should deter you from improving your mind,' I read, 'The kisses
of Thais are warmer than fire, and sweeter than honey.' That is how
a philosopher reads the books of other philosophers--and that is your
fault, you naughty child. It is true that, as long as we are what we
are, we shall never find anything but our own thoughts in the thoughts
of others, and that all of us are somewhat inclined to read books as I
have read this one."

She did not hear him; her soul was still before the Nubian's tomb. As he
heard her sigh, he kissed her on the neck, and said--

"Do not be sad, my child. We are never happy in this world, except when
we forget the world.

"Come, let us cheat life--it is sure to take its revenge. Come, let us
love!"

But she pushed him away.

"_We_ love!" she cried bitterly. "_You_ never loved any one. And _I_
do not love _you_! No! I do not love you! I hate you! Go! I hate you!
I curse and despise all who are happy, and all who are rich! Go! Go!
Goodness is only found amongst the unfortunate. When I was a child I
knew a black slave who died on the cross. He was good; he was filled
with love, and he knew the secret of life. You are not worthy to wash
his feet. Go! I never wish to see you again!"

She threw herself on her face on the carpet, and passed the night
sobbing and weeping, and forming resolutions to live, in future, like
Saint Theodor