Ng that a man's life is a gift entrusted to him by the gods--for use--to
be preserved--" "By writing foolish letters, doubtless!" said Norbanus.
"Come along, let us gallop. I am weary of the backs of all these
roisterers." And so they rode to Daphne full pelt, greatly to the anger
of the too well dressed Antiochenes, who cursed them for the mud they
splashed from wayside pools and for the dung and dust they kicked up
into plucked and penciled faces. II. A CONFERENCE AT DAPHNE It was not
yet dusk. The sun shone on the bronze roof of the temple of Apollo,
making such a contrast to, and harmony with, marble and the green of
giant cypresses as only music can suggest. The dying breeze stirred
hardly a ripple on the winding ponds, so marble columns, trees and
statuary were reflected amid shadows of the swans in water tinted by the
colors of the sinking sun. There was a murmur of wind in the tops of the
trees and a stirring of linen-clad girls near the temple
entrance--voices droning from the near-by booths behind the shrubbery--
one flute, like the plaint of Orpheus summoning Eurydice--a blossom-
scented air and an enfolding mystery of silence. Pertinax, the governor
of Rome, had merely hinted at Olympian desire, whereat some rich
Antiochenes, long privileged, had been ejected with scant ceremony from
a small marble pavilion on an islet, formed by a branch of the River
Ladon that had been guided twenty years ago by Hadrian's engineers in
curves of exquisitely studied beauty. From between Corinthian columns
was a view of nearly all the temple precincts and of the lawns where
revelers would presently forget restraint. The first night of the Daphne
season usually was the wildest night of all the year, but they began
demurely, and for the present there was the restraint of expectation.
Because there was yet snow on mountain-tops and the balmy air would
carry a suggestion of a chill at sunset, there were cunningly wrought
charcoal braziers set near the gilded couches, grouped ar