before her, pretty Gula, the wife of Paseth, who, like your father, is
away on his ship."

Here, in a tone of triumphant confidence, the answer rang from the
Biamite's lips: "There the slanderer stands revealed! Now you are
detected, now I perceive the meaning of your threat. Because, miserable
slave, you cherish the mad hope of beguiling me yourself, you do your
utmost to estrange me from your master. Gula, you say, visited Hermon in
his studio, and it may be true. But though I have been at home only a
short time, Tennis is too full of the praises of the heroic Greek who,
at the risk of his own life, rescued a child from Paseth's burning house,
for the tale not to reach my ears from ten or a dozen different quarters.
Gula is the mother of the little girl whose life was saved by Hermon's
bold deed, and perhaps the young mother only knocked at her benefactor's
door to thank him; but you, base defamer--"

"I," Bias continued, maintaining his composure with difficulty, "I saw
Gula secretly glide into our rooms again and again to permit her child's
preserver to imitate in clay what he considered beautiful. To seek your
love, as you know, the slave forbade himself, although a man no more
loses tender desires with his freedom than the tree which is encircled by
a fence ceases to put forth buds and blossoms. Eros chooses the slave's
heart also as the target for his arrows; but his aim at yours was better
than at mine. Now I know how deeply he wounds, and so, as soon as yonder
ship in the harbour bears our visitor away again, I shall see you,
Schalit's daughter, Ledscha, standing before Hermon's modelling table and
behold him scan your beauty to determine what seems worth copying."

The Biamite, panting for breath, had listened to the end. Then, raising
her little clinched hand menacingly, she muttered through her set teeth: