The lad gazed covetously at the glittering coins.
“Twelve triobols,” he repeated with a crafty smile, “and I am fifteen years old.”
“You shall have three more. But make haste, somebody might come. What did your master say?”
Paegnion looked around him.
“On the way here,” he whispered, advancing close to the wall, “my master rode for a time absorbed in thought; then he suddenly exclaimed: ‘No, I will not return as Zenon, but as Lycon.’”
“I knew it!” cried the girl and, forgetting the money, she clapped her hands so that the obols fell on the ground and rolled about in every direction.
Paegnion was not slow in picking up his treasure.
“The three triobols,” he then said, “the three triobols you promised me.”
The girl disappeared from the opening. A moment after a fold of the curtain was raised and, if Paegnion had had eyes for it, he might have seen a beautiful white arm bared to the shoulder, but the lad was more intent upon obols than arms.
At this moment the back door of the garden creaked on its rusty hinges, and Paegnion ran with all his might to the little guest-room at the corner of the house, which had been assigned to him and his master.