"Oh, hang your proverbs," the girl laughed down at us. "I don't know what you are up to, but I like you. You don't look as austere as you talk. And I don't mind your asceticism. If you don't appreciate the entertainment offered you, you can have any sort of entertainment you prefer. A goblet of wine and an hour's chat won't enervate you or make you less fit. Come in."
A horrible old Lydian woman, one-eyed, obese, clean enough of body and clothing, but a foul old beast for all that, let us in.
Agathemer introduced me as Felix and himself as Asper. The merry dark- haired girl was named Doris and her languorous comrade Nebris. A more garish and gaudy creature than Doris I have never beheld. I was struck with her profusion of jewels, mostly topazes, but also many carbuncles and garnets; rings, bracelets, a necklace, a hair-comb and many big-headed hair pins. Nebris was equally bejewelled with turquoises and opals, but, somehow, they did not glitter like the jewelry on Doris, but partook of their wearer's subdued coloring. As Doris remarked next day:
"Nebris is very graceful and almost pretty; but she was born faded, and nothing can brighten her."
We found the girls housed in as neat, cosy and charming a little nest as heart could wish for. The atrium was tiny, the courtyard was tiny, everything was tiny. But it all had an air which put us at our ease and made us feel at home. Doris, the dark-haired, red-cheeked, full-contoured lass, was plainly much taken with Agathemer and he with her; I always had a weakness for red-headed girls and felt genuinely pleased that Nebris, her long-limbed, long-fingered, pale-skinned, blurred, bleached comrade seemed equally taken with me. The sofas of the tiny triclinium were soft and comfortable and, after eight days in the saddle, without a bath, we were glad to loll on them. The wine was good and, without any effort, the four of us fell into cheerful chatter about nothing in particular. I complimented Doris on her dwelling and its furnishings and she at once insisted on showing us all over it: the kitchen, bath and latrine beyond the tiny courtyard and upstairs a second triclinium, as tiny as that below, and four tiny bed-rooms, with handsomely carved beds, piled with deep, soft feather beds and feather-pillows. Doris and Nebris each had her bed-room furnished to harmonize with her own coloring. I complimented both on their taste.
In Nebris's room Agathemer spied a flageolet.
"Do you play on this?" he asked.
"Sometimes," she said, "but Doris declares that my music makes her melancholy, it's so dismal."
"I'll play you any number of lively tunes," Agathemer promised, possessing himself of the flageolet.
We all went down into the lower triclinium, where we had left the wine, and Agathemer charmed the girls with his music and, indeed, enlivened me as much as them.