ing aloud from a scroll the praise of love as
earnestly as though his congregation were of infidels. And that other,
to the side, pushing two lovers along as though they were the veriest
laggarts. The torch-bearer, too, and the archer, and the sprinkler of
the rose-leaves--they are all, after their kind, trying to persuade
themselves that they are needed. All but he who leans over and nestles
his fat cheek on a lady's lap, as fondly and confidingly as though she
were his mother... And truly, the lady is very like his mother. So,
indeed, are all the other ladies. Strange! In all their faces is an
uniformity of divine splendour. Can it be that Venus, impatient of mere
sequences of lovers, has obtained leave of Jove to multiply herself,
and that to-day by a wild coincidence her every incarnation has trysted
an adorer to this same garden? Look closely! It must be so...

Hush! Let us keep her secret.

'ARIANE ET DIONYSE'

A PAINTING BY PAUL BERGERON, 1740

PAUVRETTE! no wonder she is startled. All came on her so suddenly. A
moment since, she was alone on this island. Theseus had left her. Her
lover had crept from her couch as she lay sleeping, and had sailed away
with his comrades, noiselessly, before the sun rose and woke her.

From the top of yonder hillock she had seen the last sail of his argosy
fading over the sea-line. Vainly she had waved her arms, and vainly her
cries had echoed through all the island. She had run distraught through
the valleys, the goats scampering before her to their own rocks. She
had strayed, wildly weeping, along the shore, and the very sky had
seemed to mock her. At length, spent with sorrow and wan with her
tears, she had lain upon the sand. Above her the cliff sloped gently
down to the shore, and all around her was the hot noontide, and no
sound save the rustling of the sea over the sand. Theseus had left her.
The sea had taken him from her. Let the sea take her in its tide....
Suddenly--what was that?--she leapt up and listened. Voices, voices,
the loud clash of cymbals! She looked round for some place to hide in.
Too late! Some man (goat or man) came bounding towards her down the
cliff. Another came after him. Then others, a whole company, and with
them many naked, abominable women, laughing and shrieking and waving
leafy wands, as they rushed down towards her. And in their midst, in a
brazen chariot drawn by panthers, sped one whose yellow hair streamed
far behind him in the wind.