[Ecstatically.] You hear! Valentinus! You hear?... Mark then, how great the prodigy when the god comes, invisible to mortal eyes! O Faunus, had I expected this I would have brought the cheese and almond cakes and little tarts you love!
Valentinus.
These shall not be wanting! [Places Quartilla’s basket in Tertulla’s hand.]
Tertulla.
O happy omen! Deign to accept them, deity! [Pertinax helps himself from the basket.] But you do not partake of them as wontedly. [Pertinax, encouraged by a kindly smile from Valentinus, eats.] That is better! Now Tertulla knows that you look on her with favour! And my garden, Faunus; as heretofore you will grant me abundance of bloom interspersed with grateful shade of strawberry tree and sycamore? And linden dear to honey-gathering bee?
Pertinax.
As heretofore, Tertulla!
Tertulla.
And my friends, the flowers: crocus, and anemone, and the blossom springing from the blood of Hyacinth—?