The court around which the house of Helena was built had, through liberal draft upon the Princess' taste and Glaucon's purse, been prepared for the entertainment. The jet of water which ordinarily rose in the centre of the court was turned off, and the little marble basin in which the bronze lotus leaves seemed to float was now covered over with a platform extended and raised sufficiently to display the performance.
Helena's nose turned too much upward for a Greek ideal when, late in the day, she contemplated the meagre decorations. Glaucon had hired a number of men and boys to gather wild flowers from the fields; but the dread of the ubiquitous Judas had kept these gleaners within a few rods of the city gate. Lamps enclosed in bags of various-colored linen and silk were substituted for the lanterns of brass and silver and opalescent stones which anciently had been the common adornment of the houses of the well-to-do people.
But whatever was lacking in these respects was compensated by the brilliancy of the chamber which, raised three steps above the pavement, opened upon the court. This place was strewn with cushions and skins of tiger and fox, so that the floor was not unlike the body of a vast peacock lying with extended wings and tail. Amid these, and upon the divans which ran round the three sides of the chamber, reclined fair women; and hovering over them, like humming-birds seeking the sweet of flowers, stood high officers from the garrison, and a few of the richest of the Greek priests in gala dress.
Menelaos asserted the prerogative of his rank, and reclined with the fair sex. Glaucon, as chief patron of the show, and more than patron of the hostess, assumed a similar privilege.
"Is she not beautiful, my sister?" whispered the Jew as Helena, having duly saluted her guests, with a wave of the hand indicated the beginning of the entertainment.
Helena evidently overheard the compliment, and rewarded Glaucon with a smile that would have captivated any voluptuary, though he were not already infatuated, as was her present victim.
"She is very fair," replied Deborah.
"A palm-tree is not more stately among juniper bushes than Helena among women," said the enamored man.
"Rather say as graceful as a spotted serpent coiling about a palm-tree," interjected his sister. "What limbs for a dancer!"