pleasure to a toil of Sisyphus (who had to roll a heavy stone
perpetually up a steep hill in the underworld. Before he reached the top
the stone always rolled down again).

"I have more than gold," said Sextus, "which it seems to me that any
crooked-minded fool may have. I have a spirit in me and a taste for
philosophies; I have a feeling that a man's life is a gift entrusted to
him by the gods--for use--to be preserved--"

"By writing foolish letters, doubtless!" said Norbanus. "Come along,
let us gallop. I am weary of the backs of all these roisterers."

And so they rode to Daphne full pelt, greatly to the anger of the too
well dressed Antiochenes, who cursed them for the mud they splashed from
wayside pools and for the dung and dust they kicked up into plucked and
penciled faces.




II. A CONFERENCE AT DAPHNE



It was not yet dusk. The sun shone on the bronze roof of the temple of
Apollo, making such a contrast to, and harmony with, marble and the
green of giant cypresses as only music can suggest. The dying breeze
stirred hardly a ripple on the winding ponds, so marble columns, trees
and statuary were reflected amid shadows of the swans in water tinted by
the colors of the sinking sun. There was a murmur of wind in the tops