Many a winter had loosened the different blocks, and bordered them with
yellow edges.

Even at a distance the girl saw that the seat was not vacant. The brook
that flowed from the spring to the sea ran beneath it, and the maid-
servants were in the habit of washing the household linen in its swift
current.

Were they now using the bench to spread out the garments they had rinsed?

No! A man lay on the hard marble, a man who had drawn his light cloak
over his face to protect himself from the rays of the sun, now rising
higher and higher.

His sandaled feet and ankles, bandaged as if for journeying, appeared
beneath the covering.

By these feet Xanthe quickly recognized the sleeping youth.

It was Phaon. She would have known him, even if she had seen only two of
his fingers.

The sun would soon reach its meridian height, and there he lay asleep.

At first it had startled her to find him here, but she soon felt nothing
but indignation, and again the image of the flute-playing women, with
whom he must have revelled until thus exhausted, rose before her mind.

"Let him sleep," she murmured proudly and contemptuously; she passed him,