She let herself slip down from the bed.
A glance convinced the young man that he was not being watched. He ventured upon a caress after which women rarely resist when once they have allowed things to go so far. Then, in order to quench by a decisive argument the last scruples of expiring modesty, he put his purse in her hand, which happened by chance to be open.
Chrysis resisted no longer.
Meanwhile the young acrobat continued her subtle and dangerous tricks. She walked upon her hands, with her skirt reversed, with her feet dangling in front of her head, between sharp swords and long keen blades. The effort occasioned by this critical posture, and perhaps also the fear of wounds, flooded her cheeks with dark warm blood, which heightened still further the glitter of her wide-open eyes. Her waist bent and straightened itself again. Her legs parted like the arms of a dancing girl.
A violent respiration agitated her naked breast.
“Enough,” said Chrysis briefly: “you have only excited me a little. Let us have no more of it. Leave me. Leave me.”
And at the moment when the two Ephesians rose, according to the tradition, to play The Fable of Hermaphroditus, she let herself slip down from the bed and went out feverishly.
III
RHACOTIS
Hardly had the door closed upon her than Chrysis pressed the inflamed centre of her desire with her hand as one presses a sore spot to relieve shooting pains. Then she leaned up against a column and twisted her fingers, groaning with anguish.