"'What is the difference,' she asked, 'between love and worship?'
"'You tell me,' he said; 'I am not good at explaining, I only feel.'
"They had moved back from the water, and were now once more lying on the soft bank.
"'I don't think you know much about feeling, child,' she answered, 'and as for love, why you're a perfect baby! We begin by worshipping; we go on to loving; and we often end by hating!'
"'Then I don't want to get to loving,' he said, 'I like worshipping best, especially if love leads to hatred; but I don't believe it! I might, perhaps, hate you, Myra, but I never could hate Viola. However, tell me what love is, and I will tell you if I have ever loved.'
"'Have you ever kissed your mistress?' she asked.
"The boy looked surprised. 'The Roman nobles,' he answered, 'do not kiss their slaves.'
"The girl burst out laughing; this idea, from her point of view, was exceedingly comical, but she did not contradict him. 'I will tell you some stories about love,' she said.
"Myra, being a Roman slave girl, and having passed through some considerable experience of what she termed love, it would be unnecessary and unedifying to follow her further. Manners and customs change, and the refinement of thought and language, notwithstanding many an ebb and flow, has enlarged its borders. To describe therefore any such scene as this truthfully, would be not only undesirable, but misleading.
"When Aureus returned to the villa late that evening, though he may not have been intellectually much wiser, he had tasted of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and knew more of evil than formerly; but it is doubtful whether he or his teacher had any active consciousness of sin. They were little better than half-educated savages, and their training on the moral side had in one case been neglected, and in the other perverted.