Lysander's eye was still along the solitary road, when he heard a low musical laugh behind him. He started in surprise, and beheld Percalus. Her mirth was increased by his astonished gaze, till, in revenge, he caught both her hands, and drawing her towards him, kissed, not without a struggle, the lips into serious gravity.
Extricating herself from him, the maiden put on an air of offended dignity, and Lysander, abashed at his own audacity, muttered some broken words of penitence.
"But indeed," he added, as he saw the cloud vanishing from her brow; "indeed thou wert so provoking, and so irresistibly beauteous. And how camest thou here, as if thou hadst dropped from the heavens?"
"Didst thou think," answered Percalus demurely, "that I could be suspected of following thee? Nay; I tarried till I could accompany Euryclea to her home yonder, and then slipping from her by her door, I came across the grass and the glen to search for the arrow shot yesterday in the hollow below thee." So saying, she tripped from the crag by his side into the nooked recess below, which was all out of sight, in case some passenger should pass the road, and where, stooping down, she seemed to busy herself in searching for the shaft amidst the odorous shrubs.
Lysander was not slow in following her footstep.
"Thine arrow is here," said he, placing his hand to his heart.
"Fie! The Ionian poets teach thee these compliments."
"Not so. Who hath sung more of Love and his arrows than our own
Alcman?"
"Mean you the Regent's favourite brother?"
"Oh no! The ancient Alcman; the poet whom even the Ephors sanction."