'You must ask me more civilly, my rough hero,' replied a soft voice
from underneath the awning. 'Beauty must be sued, and not
commanded.'

'Come, then, my olive-tree, my gazelle, my lotus-flower, my--what
was the last nonsense you taught me?--and ask this wild man of the
sands how far it is from these accursed endless rabbit-burrows to
Asgard.'

The awning was raised, and lying luxuriously on a soft mattress,
fanned with peacock's feathers, and glittering with rubies and
topazes, appeared such a vision as Philammon had never seen before.

A woman of some two-and-twenty summers, formed in the most
voluptuous mould of Grecian beauty, whose complexion showed every
violet vein through its veil of luscious brown. Her little bare
feet, as they dimpled the cushions, were more perfect than
Aphrodite's, softer than a swan's bosom. Every swell of her bust
and arms showed through the thin gauze robe, while her lower limbs
were wrapped in a shawl of orange silk, embroidered with wreaths of
shells and roses. Her dark hair lay carefully spread out upon the
pillow, in a thousand ringlets entwined with gold and jewels; her
languishing eyes blazed like diamonds from a cavern, under eyelids
darkened and deepened with black antimony; her lips pouted of
themselves, by habit or by nature, into a perpetual kiss; slowly she
raised one little lazy hand; slowly the ripe lips opened; and in
most pure and melodious Attic, she lisped her huge lover's question
to the monk, and repeated it before the boy could shake off the
spell, and answer....