"Alas! when we can," She sprang lightly away; then, turning her face as she fled, added, "Look out! thou wert taught to steal in thy boyhood—steal an interview. I will be thy accomplice."
Notes:
[1] Except occasionally the dry sudorific bath, all warm bathing was strictly forbidden as enervating.
[2] An evident exaggeration. The Spartans had too great a regard for the physical gifts as essential to warlike uses, to permit cruelties that would have blinded their young warriors. And they even forbade the practice of the pancratium as ferocious and needlessly dangerous to life.
CHAPTER VII.
That night, as Agesilaus was leaving the public table at which he supped, Periclides, who was one of the same company, but who had been unusually silent during the entertainment, approached him, and said, "Let us walk towards thy home together; the moon is up, and will betray listeners to our converse should there be any."
"And in default of the moon, thy years, if not yet mine, permit thee a lanthorn, Periclides."
"I have not drunk enough to need it," answered the Chief of the Ephors, with unusual pleasantry; "but as thou art the younger man, I will lean on thine arm, so as to be closer to thine ear."
"Thou hast something secret and grave to say, then?"
Periclides nodded.