Yet no! If he had ever met her, he would surely have remembered her red-
gold hair and the other peculiarities of a personality which was
remarkable in every respect.

It soon proved that they were total strangers, and he wished matters to
remain so.

He was glad that she attracted him so little, for at least she would
scarcely make the early departure to the Biamite, which he considered his
duty, a difficult task.

True, he admired from the first the rare milk-white line of her delicate
skin, which was wholly free from rouge--his artist eye perceived that and
the wonderfully beautiful shape of her hands and feet. The pose of the
head on the neck, too, as she turned toward him seemed remarkably fine.
This slender, pliant woman would have been an admirable model!

Again and again she reminded him of a gay Lesbian with whom he had
caroused for a night during the last Dionysia in Alexandria, yet, on
closer inspection, the two were as different as possible.

The former had been as free and reckless in her conduct as Althea was
reserved. The hair and eyebrows of the Lesbian, instead of reddish gold,
were the deepest black, and her complexion--he remembered it perfectly--
was much darker. The resemblance probably consisted merely in the shape
of the somewhat too narrow face, with its absolutely straight nose, and a
chin which was rather too small, as well as in the sound of the high
voice.