moment without being himself perceived. What a picture he beheld!
... How perfection every shade of color in every line of detail!
Sah-luma, reclining in a quaintly carved ebony chair, was toying
with the fruit and wine set out before him on an ivory and gold
stand,--his dress, simpler than it had been on the previous
evening, was of fine white linen gathered loosely about his
classic figure,--he wore neither myrtle-wreath nor jewels,--the
expression of his face was serious, even noble, and his attitude
was one of languid grace and unstudied ease that became him
infinitely well. The maidens of his household waited near him,--
some of them held flowers,--one, kneeling at a small lyre, seemed
just about to strike a few chords, when Sah-luma silenced her by a
light gesture:

"Peace, Zoralin!" he said softly.. "I cannot listen: thou hast not
my Niphrata's tenderness!"

Zoralin, a beautiful, dark girl, with hair as black as night, and
eyes that looked as though they held suppressed yet ever burning
fire, let her hands instantly drop from the instrument, and
sighing, shrank back a little in abashed silence. At that moment
Theos advanced,--and the Laureate sprang up delightedly:

"Ah, at last, my friend!" he cried, enthusiastically clasping him
by both hands,--"Where, in the name of all the gods, hast thou
been roaming? How did we part?--by my soul I forget!--but no
matter!--thou art here once more, and as I live, we will not
separate again so easily! My noble Theos!" and he threw one arm
affectionately around his neck--"I have missed thee more than I
can tell these past few hours,--thou dost seem so sympathetically