CHAPTER VIII.
The sun was in its fervor, when Theon issued from one of the public baths. He was not disposed for rest, yet the heat of the streets was insufferable. “I will seek the Gardens,” he thought, “and loiter in their cool shades until the Master join me.” Reaching the house of the Gargettian, and the entrance to the Gardens being shorter through it than by the public gate, he entered, and sought the passage he had before traversed. He however took a wrong one, and, after wandering for some time, opened a door, and found himself in a library. Epicurus was sitting in deep study, with his tablets before him; his pen in one hand, his forehead supported on the other. Metrodorus, on the opposite side of the room, was engaged in transcribing.
Theon stopped, and, making a short apology, hastily retired. “Stay!” cried the Master. Theon again entered, but did not advance much within the threshhold.
“When I bade you stay, I did not mean to fix you as doorkeeper. Come in, and shut the door behind you.” Theon joyfully obeyed, and hurried to seize the extended hand of the sage. “Since you have intruded on the sanctuary, I shall not drive you out.” He motioned the youth to a place on his couch. “And now, what pretty things am I to say to you for your yesterday’s defence of the wicked Gargettian? You should have come home with me last night, when we were both hot from the combat, and then I could have made you an eloquent compliment in full assembly at the Symposium, and you would as eloquently have disclaimed it with one of your modest blushes.”
“Then, truly, if the Master had such an intention, I am very glad I did not follow him. But I passed the evening at my own lodgings, with my friend Cleanthes.”
“Trying to talk him into good humor and charity, was it?”
“Something so.”
“And you succeeded?”
“Why, I don’t know; he did not leave me in worse humor than he came.”
“Nay, then it must have been in better. Explanation always approaches or widens the differences between friends.”