a pair
of boys: but a whole army of cyclops and graces, with such trebles and
such bass-voices! It shall make Cyril's ears tingle in his palace!'

'The chant! A noble office for me, truly! That is the very part of the
absurd spectacle to which you used to say the people never dreamed of
attending. All which is worth settling you seemed to have settled for
yourself before you deigned to consult me.'

'I said so? Surely you must mistake. But if any hired poetaster's chant
do pass unheeded, what has that to do with Hypatia's eloquence and
science, glowing with the treble inspiration of Athene, Phoebus, and
Dionusos? And as for having arranged beforehand--my adorable mistress,
what more delicate compliment could I have paid you?'

'I cannot say that it seems to me to be one.'

'How? After saving you every trouble which I could, and racking my
overburdened wits for stage effects and properties, have I not brought
hither the darling children of my own brain, and laid them down
ruthlessly, for life or death, before the judgment-seat of your lofty
and unsparing criticism?'

Hypatia felt herself tricked: but there was no escape now.

'And who, pray, is to disgrace herself and me, as Venus Anadyomene?'

'Ah! that is the most exquisite article in all my bill of fare! What if
the kind gods have enabled me to exact a promise from--whom, think you?'

'What care I? How can I tell?'asked Hypatia, who suspected and dreaded
that she could tell.

'Pelagia herself!'

Hypatia rose angrily.

'This, sir, at least, is too much! It was not enough for you, it seems,
to claim, or rather to take for granted, so imperiously, so mercilessly,
a conditional promise--weakly, weakly made, in the vain hope that you
would help forward aspirations of mine which you have let lie fallow for
months--in which I do not believe that you sympathise now!--It was not
enough for you to declare yourself publicly yesterday a Christian, and
to come hither this morning to flatter me into the belief that you will
dare, ten days hence, to restore the worship of the gods whom you have
abjured!--It was not enough to plan without me all those movements in
which you told me I was to be your fellow-counsellor--the very condition
which you yourself offered!--It was not enough for you to command me to
sit in that theatre, as your bait, your puppet, your victim, blushing
and shuddering at sights unfit for the eyes of gods and men:--but, over
and above all this, I mus