Only the courtesans were there, for the third day of the Aphrodisae being reserved for the exclusive devotions of the married women, the latter had just started for the Astarteion in a great procession, and there was nothing in the square but flowered robes and eyes blackened with paint.

As Myrtocleia pa.s.sed by, a young girl called Philotis, who was talking with many others, pulled her by the sleeve knot.

"Ho, my little la.s.s! you played at Bacchis's yesterday? What happened?

What took place there? Did Bacchis put on a new necklace to hide the cavities in her neck? Has she got wooden b.r.e.a.s.t.s or copper ones? Did she forget to dye the little white hairs on her temples before putting on her wig? Come, speak, fried fish!"

"Do you suppose I looked at her? I arrived after the banquet, I played my piece, I received my payment, and I ran off."

"Oh, I know you don't dissipate!"

"To stain my robe and receive blows? No, Philotis. Only rich women can afford to indulge in orgies. Little flute-girls get nothing but tears."

"When one doesn't want to stain one's robe, one leaves it in the ante-chamber. When one receives blows, one insists on being paid double.

It is quite elementary. So you have nothing to tell us? not an adventure, not a joke, not a scandal? We are yawning like storks. Invent something if you know nothing."

"My friend Theano stayed after me. When I awoke a few minutes ago, she had not yet come. The fete is perhaps still going on."

"It is finished," said another woman. "Theano is down there, by the ceramic wall."

The courtesans started off at a run, but presently stopped with a smile of pity.

Theano, in a naive fit of drunkenness, was obstinately pulling at a rose stripped of its leaves, the thorns of which were caught in her hair. Her yellow tunic was soiled with red and white stains as if she had borne the brunt of the whole orgie. The bronze clasp, which kept up up the converging folds of the stuff upon her left shoulder, dangled below the waist, and revealed the mobile globe of a young breast already too mature, and which was stained with two spots of purple.

As soon as she saw Myrtocleia, she brusquely went off into a peal of singular laughter. Everybody knew it at Alexandria, and it had procured her the nickname of the "Fowl." It was an interminable cluck-cluck, a torrent of gaiety which commenced in a very low key and took her breath away, then shot up again into a shrill cry, and so forth, rhythmically, like the joy of a triumphant hen.

"An egg! an egg!" said Philotis.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

But Myrtocleia made a gesture:

"Come, Theano, come to bed. You are not well, come with me."

"Ah! . . . ha! . . . Ah! . . . ha!" laughed the child. And she took her breast in her little hand, crying in a hoa.r.s.e voice:

"Ah! . . . Ha! . . . the mirror . . ."

"Come along!" repeated Myrto, losing patience.

"The mirror . . . it is stolen, stolen! Ah! haaa! I shall never laugh so much again if I live to be as old as Chronos. Stolen, stolen, the silver mirror!"

The singing-girl tried to drag her away, but Philotis had understood.

"Hi!" she cried to the others, waving her two arms. "Come here quickly!

There is news! Bacchis's mirror has been stolen!"

And all exclaimed:

"Papaie! Bacchis's mirror!"

In an instant, thirty women crowded round the flute-girl:

"What is happening?"

"What?"

"Bacchis has had her mirror stolen: Theano has just said so."

"But when?"

"Who has taken it?"

The child shrugged her shoulders:

"How do I know?"

"You pa.s.sed the night there. You must know. It is not possible. Who entered her house? You have certainly been told. Try to collect yourself, Theano."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Thirty women crowded round the flute-girl.]

"What do I know about it? There were more than twenty of them in the banqueting room.

"They had hired me to play the flute, but they prevented me from playing because they do not like music. They asked me to mimic the figure of Danae and they threw gold coins at me, and Bacchis took them all away from me . . . It was a band of madmen. They made me drink head downwards out of a bowl overflowing with wine. They had poured seven tankards in it because there were seven wines upon the table. My face was all dripping. Even my hair was soaked, and my roses."

"Yes," interrupted Myrto, "you are an awful fright. But the mirror? Who took it?"

"Exactly! when they put me on my feet again, my head was suffused with blood, and I was covered with wine up to the ears. Ha! Ha! they all began to laugh . . . Bacchis sent for the mirror . . . Ha! ha! it had disappeared. Somebody had taken it."

"Who? That is what we want to know."

"It was not I, that is all I know, It was no use searching me: I was quite naked. I cannot hide a mirror under my eyelid, like a drachma. It was not I, that is all I know. She crucified a slave, perhaps on account of that. When I saw that they were not looking at me, I picked up the Danae coins. See, Myrto, I have five: you shall buy robes for the three of us."

The news of the theft spread gradually over the whole square. The courtesans did not hide their envious satisfaction. A noisy curiosity animated the moving groups.

"It is a woman," said Philotis; "it is a woman who is responsible for this piece of work."

"Yes, the mirror was well hidden. A thief could have carried off everything in the room and upset everything without finding the stone."

"Bacchis had enemies, especially her former friends. The knew all her secrets. One of them has probably enticed her away somewhere, and then entered her house at the hour when the sun is hot and the streets are almost deserted."

"Oh! she has perhaps sold the mirror to pay her debts."

"Supposing it were one of her lovers? They say she takes porters now!"

"No, it is a woman, I am sure of it."