Clodius.

'I agree with you,' returned the Greek. 'I adore even the shadow of
Love; but I adore himself yet more.'

'Art thou, then, soberly and honestly in love? Hast thou that feeling
which the poets describe--a feeling that makes us neglect our suppers,
forswear the theatre, and write elegies? I should never have thought
it. You dissemble well.'

'I am not far gone enough for that,' returned Glaucus, smiling, 'or
rather I say with Tibullus--

He whom love rules, where'er his path may be, Walks safe and sacred.

In fact, I am not in love; but I could be if there were but occasion to
see the object. Eros would light his torch, but the priests have given
him no oil.'

'Shall I guess the object?--Is it not Diomed's daughter? She adores
you, and does not affect to conceal it; and, by Hercules, I say again
and again, she is both handsome and rich. She will bind the door-posts
of her husband with golden fillets.'

'No, I do not desire to sell myself. Diomed's daughter is handsome, I
grant: and at one time, had she not been the grandchild of a freedman, I
might have... Yet no--she carries all her beauty in her face; her
manners are not maiden-like, and her mind knows no culture save that of
pleasure.'