flowers, and the winds, and twisting
the blood of man and woman in your fingers like a living skein of
soft red silk. They will always worship you. It may not be in
temples any longer, not with a studied liturgy, but wherever the
sap rises in a flower, or the joy of life swims up in the morning
through the broken film of dreams, or a young man perceives for
the first time that the girl he meets is comely, you will be
worshipped, Aphrodite, for the essence of your immortality is the
cumulative glow of its recurrent mortality.

HERMES [_entering abruptly_].

You will be disappointed----

CIRCE.

Ah! you followed the youths and maidens to the little temple of
our friend. Is it not beautiful?

HERMES.

It is hideous.

CIRCE.

Are you sure that it is a temple at all?

HERMES.

I confess that I was for a long time uncertain, but on the whole
I believe that it is.

APHRODITE.

But is it dedicated to me?

HERMES.

That is the disappointment.... It is best to tell you at once
that I see no evidence whatever that it is.

CIRCE.

I am very much disappointed.

APHRODITE.

I am very much relieved. But could you not gather from the
decoration of the interior to whom of us it is inscribed?

HERMES.

It is not decorated at all: whitewashed walls, wooden benches,
naked floors.

CIRCE.

But what is the nature of the sculpture?

HERMES.

I could see no sculpture, except a sort of black tablet, with
names upon it, and at the sides two of the youthful attendants of
Eros--those that have wings, indeed, but cannot rest. These were
exceedingly ill-carven in a kind of limestone. And I hardly like
to tell you what I found behind the altar----

APHRODITE.

I am not easily shocked. My poor worshippers sometimes demand a
very considerable indulgence.

CIRCE.

Nothing very ugly, I hope?

HERMES.

Yes; very ugly, and still more incomprehensible. But nothing that
could spring out of any misconception of the ritual of our friend.
No; I hardly like to tell you. Well, a gaunt painted figure, with
spines about the bleeding forehead----

APHRODITE.

Was it fastened to any symbol? Did you notice anything that
explained the horror of it?

HERMES.

No. I did not observe it very closely. As I was glancing at it,
the celebration or ritual, or whatever we are to call it, began,
and I withdrew to the door, not knowing what frenzy might seize
upon the worshippers.

APHRODITE.

There was a cannibal altar i