As soon as the two Ephesians saw Chrysis enter, they rose to meet her.
“Come away, my Chryse. Theano stays: but we are going.
“I stay too,” said the courtesan. And she lay down on her back upon a great bed covered with roses.
A din of voices and the clattering of money falling on the floor attracted her attention. It was Theano who, in order to parody her sister, had bethought her to caricature the “Fable of Danaë,” simulating a mad ecstasy of voluptuous delight every time a golden coin penetrated her. The child’s daring impiety amused all the guests, for they were no longer in the days when the thunderbolt would have exterminated those who scoffed at the Immortal One. But the sport degenerated, as might have been foreseen. A clumsy fellow hurt the poor little thing, and she fell to weeping noisily.
It was necessary to invent a new amusement to console her. Two dancing-girls pushed into the centre of the room an immense silver-gilt bowl filled to the top with wine. Then somebody seized Theano by the feet, and made her drink with her head downwards. This convulsed her with a fit of laughter which she was unable to master.
This idea was such a success that everybody crowded around, and when the flute-girl was set on her feet again, the sight of her little face purple with congestion and dripping with wine, produced such a general hilarity that Bacchis said to Selene:
“A mirror! a mirror! let her see herself!”
The slave brought a bronze mirror. “No, not that one. The mirror of Rhodopis. She merits it.”
Chrysis sprang up with a bound. The blood spurted to her cheeks, then retired again, and she remained perfectly pale, with the beatings of her heart battering her breast, and her eyes fixed on the door through which the slave had disappeared.