"Do I not have a perfect Greek pronunciation?" said the lady, turning
to Pratinas. "It is impossible to carry on a polite conversation in
Latin."

"I can assure your ladyship," said the Hellene, with still another
bland smile, "that your pronunciation is something exceedingly
remarkable."

Valeria was pacified, and lay back submitting to her hairdressers[40],
while Pratinas, who knew what kind of "philosophy" appealed most to
his fair patroness, read with a delicate yet altogether admirable
voice, a number of scraps of erotic verse that he said friends had
just sent on from Alexandria.

[40] _Ornatrices_.

"Oh! the shame to call himself a philosopher," groaned the neglected
Pisander to himself. "If I believed in the old gods, I would invoke
the Furies upon him."

But Valeria was now in the best of spirits. "By the two
Goddesses,"[41] she swore, "what charming sentiments you Greeks can
express. Now I think I look presentable, and can go around and see
Papiria, and learn about that dreadful Silanus affair. Tell Agias to
bring in the cinnamon ointment. I will try that for a change. It is in
the murrhine[42] vase in the other room."

[41] Demeter and Persephone, a Greek woman's oath.