The bride, attended by a group of her friends, was led by Thrasabad through one of the numerous cross passages out of the Circus.
"Where is she going?" asked Modigisel, following her with ardent eyes.
"To the Catholic chapel close by, which they have made in the little temple of Vesta. She promised her father to pray there before midnight; she was forced to resign the blessing of her church at her marriage with a heretic." The bride's graceful figure now vanished through the vaulted doorway.
Modigisel began again: "Let me have your little maid, and take my big sweetheart; you will make almost a hundred pounds by the bargain. True, in this climate, one ought to choose a slender sweetheart. Is she a free Roman? Then I, too, will marry her. I won't stop for that."
"Keep your plump happiness, and leave me my slender one. I have by no means drunk enough from the ocean to make that exchange."
Suddenly Astarte said loudly, "She's nothing but skin and bones!" Both men started; had she understood their low whispers? Again the full lips curled slightly, revealing her sharp eye-teeth.
"And eyes! those eyes!" replied Modigisel.
"Yes, bigger than her whole face. She looks like a chicken just out of the shell!" sneered Astarte. "What is there so remarkable about her?" The beauty's round eyes glittered with a sinister light.
"A soul, Carthaginian," replied the bridegroom.
"Women have no souls," retorted Astarte, gazing calmly at him. "So one of the Fathers of the Church taught--or a philosopher. Some, instead of the soul, have water, like that pygmy. Others have fire." She paused, her breath coming quickly and heavily. Astarte was indeed beautiful at that moment, diabolically, bewitchingly beautiful; the exquisitely moulded, sphinxlike countenance was glowing with life.