uestion offended you,
but you did not by any means know how to attain that magnanimity, for
I have seen you fail in it; indeed it is contrary to the very nature of
woman, and--the gods be thanked--you are not a Stoic in woman's dress,
but a woman--a true woman, as you should be. You have learned nothing
from Zeno and Chrysippus but what any peasant girl might learn from an
honest father, to be true I mean and to love virtue. Be content with
that; I am more than satisfied."

"Oh, Publius," exclaimed the girl, grasping her friend's hand. "I
understand you, and I know that you are right. A woman must be miserable
so long as she fancies herself strong, and imagines and feels that she
needs no other support than her own firm will and determination, no
other counsel than some wise doctrines which she accepts and adheres to.
Before I could call you mine, and went on my own way, proud of my own
virtue, I was--I cannot bear to think of it--but half a soul, and took
it for a whole; but now--if now fate were to snatch you from me, I
should still know where to seek the support on which I might lean in
need and despair. Not in the Stoa, not in herself can a woman find such
a stay, but in pious dependence on the help of the gods."

"I am a man," interrupted Publius, "and yet I sacrifice to them and
yield ready obedience to their decrees."

"But," cried Klea, "I saw yesterday in the temple of Serapis the meanest
things done by his ministers, and it pained me and disgusted me, and I
lost my hold on the divinity; but the extremest anguish and deepest love
have led me to find it again. I can no longer conceive of the power
that upholds the universe as without love nor of the love that makes men
happy as other than divine. Any one who has once prayed for a being they
love as I prayed for you in the desert can never again forget how to
pray. Such prayers indeed are not in vain. Even if no god can hear them
there is a strengthening virtue in such prayer itself.

"Now I will go contentedly back to our temple till you fetch me, for I
know that the discreetest, wisest, and kindest Beings will watch over
our love."

"You will not accompany me to Apollodorus and Irene?" asked Publius in
surprise.

"No," answered Klea firmly. "Rather take me back to the Serapeum. I have
not yet been released from the duties I undertook there, and it will be
more worthy of us both that Asclepiodorus should give you the daughter
of Philotas as your wife than