"Suppose," thought I, "some wily legacy hunter should dispatch an agent
to Africa and catch us in our lie? Or even suppose the hireling servant,
glutted with prosperity, should tip off his cronies or give the whole
scheme away out of spite? There would be nothing for it but flight and,
in a fresh state of destitution, a recalling of poverty which had been
driven off. Gods and goddesses, how ill it fares with those living
outside the law; they are always on the lookout for what is coming to
them!" (Turning these possibilities over in my mind I left the house, in
a state of black melancholy, hoping to revive my spirits in the fresh
air, but scarcely had I set foot upon the public promenade when a girl,
by no means homely, met me, and, calling me Polyaenos, the name I had
assumed since my metamorphosis, informed me that her mistress desired
leave to speak with me. "You must be mistaken," I answered, in
confusion, "I am only a servant and a stranger, and am by no means worthy
of such an honor.")




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIXTH.

("You yourself," she replied, "are the one to whom I was sent but,)
because you are well aware of your good looks, you are proud and sell
your favors instead of giving them. What else can those wavy well-combed
locks mean or that face, rouged and covered with cosmetics, or that
languishing, wanton expression in your eyes? Why that gait, so precise
that not a footstep deviates from its place, unless you wish to show off
your figure in order to sell your favors? Look at me, I know nothing
about omens and I don't study the heavens like the astrologers, but I can
read men's intentions in their faces and I know what a flirt is after