He had believed himself cured of the madness of the previous night and thought that nothing could ever again hurl him into this shadow of the unknown.
But he had reckoned without the woman.
Women! women! if you desire to be loved, show yourself, return, be ever-present! The emotion he had felt at the entrance of the courtesan was so overwhelming and complete that there could be no thought of opposing it by an effort of the will. Demetrios was bound like a barbarian slave to the conqueror’s chariot. The thought that he had freed himself was a delusion. Without knowing it and quite naturally she had placed her hand upon him.
He had seen her approach, for she wore the same yellow robe she had done when he met her on the jetty. She walked with slow and graceful steps with undulating motion of the hips. She had come straight towards him as if she guessed he were concealed behind the stone.
From the first he realized that he had again fallen at her feet. When she took from her girdle the mirror of shining bronze, she gazed at herself in it for a time before handing it to the priest, and the splendour of her eyes became dazzling. When to take her copper comb she put her hand to her hair and lifted her bent arm, the beautiful lines of her body were displayed beneath her robe and the sunlight glistened upon the tiny beads of perspiration on her skin. When, last of all, to unfasten and take off her necklace of heavy emeralds she put aside the thick silk which shielded her breast and left but a little space full of shadow with just room for the insertion of a bouquet, Demetrios felt himself seized with frenzy.
But then she began to speak and each word of hers was suffering to him. She, a beautiful vase, white as the statue itself and with gleaming golden hair, seemed to insist upon pleasure. She told of her deeds in the service of the Goddess. Even the ease with which her favours were obtainable attracted Demetrios to her. How true it is that a woman is not entirely seductive to her lover unless she gives him ground for jealousy!
So, after presenting to the Goddess her green necklace in exchange for the one for which she was hoping, when Chrysis returned to the city she took with her a man’s will in her mouth with the little rose the stalk of which she was biting.
Demetrios waited till he was alone in the holy place; then he emerged from his retreat.
He looked at the statue in anguish expecting a struggle within him. But being incapable of renewing, after so short an interval, such violent emotion, he remained wonderfully calm and without any preliminary remorse.
He carelessly ascended to the statue, took off the necklace of real pearls from its bowed neck and concealed it within his raiment.