ent has gone from me with
her. I saw splendid forms at thy villa. Do not contradict me. I know
what love is; and I know that when one is desired another cannot
take her place. But in a beautiful slave it is possible to find even
momentary distraction."

"I do not need it," said Vinicius.

But Petronius, who had for him a real weakness, and who wished to soften
his pain, began to meditate how he might do so.

"Perhaps thine have not for thee the charm of novelty," said he, after a
while (and here he began to look in turn at Iras and Eunice, and finally
he placed his palm on the hip of the golden-haired Eunice). "Look
at this grace! for whom some days since Fonteius Capiton the younger
offered three wonderful boys from Clazomene. A more beautiful figure
than hers even Skopas himself has not chiselled. I myself cannot tell
why I have remained indifferent to her thus far, since thoughts of
Chrysothemis have not restrained me. Well, I give her to thee; take her
for thyself!"

When the golden-haired Eunice heard this, she grew pale in one moment,
and, looking with frightened eyes on Vinicius, seemed to wait for his
answer without breath in her breast.

But he sprang up suddenly, and, pressing his temples with his hands,
said quickly, like a man who is tortured by disease, and will not hear
anything,--"No, no! I care not for her! I care not for others! I thank
thee, but I do not want her. I will seek that one through the city. Give
command to bring me a Gallic cloak with a hood. I will go beyond the
Tiber--if I could see even Ursus."

And he hurried away. Petronius, seeing that he could not remain in one
place, did not try to detain him. Taking, however, his refusal as a
temporary dislike for all women save Lygia, and not wishing his own
magnanimity to go for naught, he said, turning to the slave,--"Eunice,
thou wilt bathe and anoint thyself, then dress: after that thou wilt go
to the house of Vinicius."

But she dropped before him on her knees, and with joined palms implored
him not to remove her from the house. She would not go to Vinicius, she
said. She would rather carry fuel to the hypocaustum in his house than
be chief servant in that of Vinicius. She would not, she could not go;
and she begged him to have pity on her. Let him give command to flog her
daily, only not send her away.

And trembling like a leaf with fear and excitement, she stretched her
hands to him, while he listened with amazement. A slave who