'Like me!--you must come and see us. I have something to say to you
.... You must!'

Philammon misinterpreted the intense interest of her tone, and if he
did not shrink back, gave some involuntary gesture of reluctance.
Pelagia laughed aloud.

'Don't be vain enough to suspect, foolish boy, but come! Do you
think that I have nothing to talk about but nonsense? Come and see
me. It may be better for you. I live in--' and she named a
fashionable street, which Philammon, though he inwardly vowed not to
accept the invitation, somehow could not help remembering.

'Do leave the wild man, and come,' growled the Amal from within the
palanquin. 'You are not going to turn nun, I hope?'

'Not while the first man I ever met in the world stays in it,'
answered Pelagia, as she skipped into the palanquin, taking care to
show the most lovely white heel and ankle, and, like the Parthian,
send a random arrow as she retreated. But the dart was lost on
Philammon, who had been already hustled away by the bevy of laughing
attendants, amid baskets, dressing-cases, and bird-cages, and was
fain to make his escape into the Babel round, and inquire his way to
the patriarch's house.

'Patriarch's house?' answered the man whom he first addressed, a
little lean, swarthy fellow, with merry black eyes, who, with a
basket of fruit at his feet, was sunning himself on a baulk of
timber, meditatively chewing the papyrus-cane, and examining the