The young sculptor made soft eyes at her.
"If I were a courtier," he objected, "I must scatter my small eloquence among many beauties that I would liefer save for one."
She appropriated the compliment at once.
"Thou dost not hunger after even that opportunity," she pouted. "How long hath it been since the halls of my father's house knew thy steps? A whole moon!"
"I feared that I should find Nechutes there," Kenkenes explained.
During this pretty joust the brows of the prospective cup-bearer had knitted blackly. The scowl was unpropitious.
"Thou mayest come freely now," he growled, "The way shall be clear."
The lady looked at him in mock fear.
"Come, Nechutes," the sculptor implored laughingly, "be gracious.
Being in highest favor, it behooves thee to be generous."
But the prospective cup-bearer refused to be placated. He rumbled an order to the slaves and they shouldered the litter.