“Well, I mean that you would say with Theognis[241] of Megara, that amiable poet:
‘Temper the pangs of love and assuage the torments, O Goddess,
That gnaw my heart! Oh! restore my joy and contentment.’”
“You are incorrigible!” said Claudia.
But Lucilia, with a merry twinkle in her eye, laid her hand on her companion’s shoulder, saying softly: “Ah! fluttering heart, it is vain to try concealment! Your Lucilia’s experience and knowledge of mankind can see through every disguise. ‘Restore my joy, bring Aurelius to my side.’ It is the wolf in the fable—he comes softly down on his prey with a tender, elegiac grace! Sigh again—with Sappho this time—:
‘Woe is me! my tremulous heart beats faintly—
Thou art near! My faltering voice refuses utterance even!’”
And she glided off, while Claudia stood gazing fixedly at the sparkling water in the basin. In her somewhat hasty retreat, Lucilia ran up against the broad back of Herodianus, who was clinging convulsively to the back of a chair with both hands, and leaning over it gazed up, as if spellbound, in silent contemplation at the star-spangled sky.
“I beg your pardon, old sinner!"[242] said the girl saucily, as she passed on; but a deep sigh from the freedman made her pause.