tward from the solitude of her
individuality. I, on the other hand, leave very rarely, and with
peculiar reluctance, the rock-crystal tower from which I watch
the world, myself unavoidable and unattainable. My arrows
penetrate every disguise, every species of physical and spiritual
armour, but they are not turned against my own heart. I have
always been graceful and inconspicuous in my attitudes. The image
of Eros, with contorted shoulders and projected elbows, aiming a
shaft at himself, is one which the Muse of Sculpture would
shudder to contemplate.

HERA.

Then what was the meaning of your apparent infatuation for Psyche?

EROS.

O do not call it "apparent." It was genuine and it was
all-absorbing. But it was absolutely exceptional. Looking back, it
seems to me that I must have been gazing at myself in a mirror, and
have dismissed an arrow before I realised who was the quarry. It is
not necessary to remind you of the circumstances----

HERA.

You would, I suppose, describe them as exceptional?

EROS.

As wholly exceptional. And could I be expected to prolong an
ardour so foreign to my nature? The victim of passion cannot be
a contemplator at the same moment, and I may frankly admit to you,
Hera, that during the period of my infatuation for Psyche, there
were complaints from every province of the universe. It was said
that unless my attention could be in a measure diverted from that
admirable girl, there would be something like a stagnation of
general vitality. Phoebus remarked one day, that if the ploughman
became the plough the cessation of harvests would be inevitable.

HERA.

It was at that moment, I suppose, that you besought Zeus so
passionately to confer upon Psyche the rank of a goddess?

EROS.

You took that, no doubt, for an evidence of my intenser
infatuation. An error; it was a proof that the arguments of the
family were beginning to produce their effect upon me. I perceived
my responsibility, and I recognised that it was not the place of
the immortal organiser of languishment to be sighing himself. To
deify my lovely Psyche was to recognise her claim, and--and----

HERA.

To give you a convenient excuse for neglecting her?

EROS.

It is that crudity of yours, Hera, which has before now made your
position in Olympus so untenable. You lack the art of elegant
insinuation.

HERA.

Am I then to believe that you were playing a part when you seemed
a little while ago so anxious to re