rotection from the night cold, it was as clear
as in daylight. Eight and twelve flamed lamps were burning; these were
like vessels, trees, animals, birds, or statues, holding cups filled
with perfumed olive oil, lamps of alabaster, marble, or gilded
Corinthian bronze, not so wonderful as that famed candlestick used by
Nero and taken from the temple of Apollo, but beautiful and made by
famous masters. Some of the lights were shaded by Alexandrian glass,
or transparent stuffs from the Indus, of red, blue, yellow, or violet
color, so that the whole atrium was filled with many colored rays.
Everywhere was given out the odor of nard, to which Vinicius had grown
used, and which he had learned to love in the Orient. The depths of the
house, in which the forms of male and female slaves were moving, gleamed
also with light. In the triclinium a table was laid for four persons.
At the feast were to sit, besides Vinicius and Lygia, Petronius
and Chrysothemis. Vinicius had followed in everything the words of
Petronius, who advised him not to go for Lygia, but to send Atacinus
with the permission obtained from Caesar, to receive her himself in the
house, receive her with friendliness and even with marks of honor.

"Thou wert drunk yesterday," said he; "I saw thee. Thou didst act with
her like a quarryman from the Alban Hills. Be not over-insistent, and
remember that one should drink good wine slowly. Know too that it is
sweet to desire, but sweeter to be desired."

Chrysothemis had her own and a somewhat different opinion on this point;
but Petronius, calling her his vestal and his dove, began to explain the
difference which must exist between a trained charioteer of the Circus
and the youth who sits on the quadriga for the first time. Then, turning
to Vinicius, he continued,--"Win her confidence, make her joyful, be
magnanimous. I have no wish to see a gloomy feast. Swear to her, by
Hades even, that thou wilt return her to Pomponia, and it will be thy
affair that to-morrow she prefers to stay with thee."

Then pointing to Chrysothemis, he added,--"For five years I have acted
thus more or less with this timid dove, and I cannot complain of her
harshness."

Chrysothemis struck him with her fan of peacock feathers, and
said,--"But I did not resist, thou satyr!"

"Out of consideration for my predecessor--"

"But wert thou not at my feet?"

"Yes; to put rings on thy toes."

Chrysothemis looked involuntarily at her feet, on the t