ager for the thrilling touch of her
beauty, caressed her firm round throat, the pearly globes terminating in
a soft rose petal, testing their firm elasticity, and the winding
network of slender blue veins delicately outlined beneath the satiny
skin, flowing down, down--in line with the strongly incurved waist; the
rotund hips, the slightly rounded abdomen, like that of a crater, and the
limbs the harmonious proportions of which had been compared in other
times to the elephant's trunk by the Asiatic merchants who visited her
in Athens.

Passion had swept its fiery tongue over her without consuming her; she
had lived in the midst of its ardor, cold, emotionless, and white, like
a marble statue in the warmth of the sun. Seeing herself young, still
beautiful, and with a virginal freshness, she smiled, pleased with
herself, content with life.

"Odacis! Odacis!"

At the echo of her voice there entered a Celtiberian slave, tall, spare,
strong, whom the Greek valued highly for the gentleness with which she
combed her hair.

Supporting herself on the shoulders of the slave, she raised up and
sprang from the couch to enter the bath.

Her nude form was invested by her hair like a transparent, golden veil.
As her bare feet pressed the mosaic, which depicted the Judgment of
Paris, the chill of the tiles with its agreeable shock brought a smile
to her lips; her laugh deepened the dimples in her cheeks, and the
reaction caused the curves of her body to quiver with gentle
undulations.

She descended three steps and threw herself into the jasper piscina
swinging her arms and splashing the water into tiny pearls. In the green
pool her body assumed an ideal transparency, the glow of a fantastic
apparition, and she moved from one side of the tank to the other like a
siren with pearly back and floating hair.

"Who has come, Odacis?" she asked, lying deep in the bath.

"The women from Gades, who danced last night, have arrived. Polyanthus
has given them lodgings near the kitchens."

"And who else?"

"A moment ago the stranger from Athens, whom you met this morning at the
temple of Aphrodite. I have had him go into the library, and I have
forgotten none of the duties of hospitality. He has just come from the
bath."

Sonnica smiled, recalling the meeting that morning. She had slept badly.
She attributed it to the wakeful night spent with friends on the terrace
of the villa, and to the capricious journey to the port before sunris