"_Eleleu!_" cried Agias, pushing into a small but neatly furnished
room. "What have we here? Do the muses sing in Subura? Has Sappho
brought hither her college of poetesses from Lesbos?"

"_Ai!_" exclaimed Artemisia, drawing back, "who are you? You're
dreadfully rude. I never saw you before."

"Nor I you;" replied Agias, in capital good humour, "but that is no
reason why I should take my eyes away from your pretty little face.
No, you needn't point your middle finger at me so, to ward off the
evil eye. I'm neither Chaldean astrologer, nor Etruscan soothsayer.
Come, tell me who you are, and whom you belong to?"

Artemisia did not have the least idea what to say. Agias, partly
through youthful love of adventure, partly because he felt that he was
playing now for very high stakes and must risk a good deal, had thrown
himself on the divan, and was holding Artemisia captive under his
keen, genial eyes. She grew redder in face than before, began to
speak, then broke off with more confused blushes.

"She means to say," finally ventured Sesostris, "that she is
Artemisia, the niece of Pratinas."

"The niece of Pratinas!" exclaimed Agias, settling himself upon the
cushions in a manner that indicated his intention to make a prolonged
stay; "and does Pratinas keep his pretty niece shut up in a gloomy
tenement, when she has the voice of one of the Graces, and more than
their share of beauty! Shame on him; I thought he had better sense
than that!"