So they went along the dark streets which grew full of people the farther they went, side by side in silence. Presently Pollux said:
"Put your arm through mine; you ought to feel that I am protecting you, and I—I should like to feel at every step that I have found you once more, and am allowed to be near you—so sweet a creature."
The words did not sound impertinent, on the contrary, they sounded very much in earnest, and the sculptor's deep voice trembled with emotion as he spoke them with deep tenderness. They knocked at the door of the girl's heart with the urgent hand of love; she unhesitatingly put her hand through his arm and answered softly:
"You will take care of me now."
"Yes," said he, and he took her little hand, which rested on his right arm, in his left hand. She did not draw it away, and after they had gone on thus for a few paces he sighed and said:
"Do you know how I feel?"
"Well!"
"Nay, I myself cannot put it into words. Rather as if I had triumphed in the Olympian games, or as if Caesar had invested me with the purple!—But who cares for the wealth or the purple! You are hanging on my arm, and I have hold of your hand; compared with this, all is as nought. If it were not for the people about I—I do not know what I could do."
She looked up at him with happy content, but he lifted her hand to his lips and pressed it to them long and fervently. Then he let it go again and said, with a sigh that came up from the bottom of his heart:
"Oh Arsinoe, my sweet Arsinoe, how I love you!"