She was smitten
dumb and rigid and her discomposure was remarked by all present. But she
recovered herself in time, passed off her agitation as having been due to
one of her sudden attacks of pain in the chest. After that she did as much
as Vedia to dispel any tendency to suspicions which she might have
aroused. She was plainly, to my eyes, overjoyed at the sight of me in the
flesh.
I have branded on my memory for life the picture I saw as I entered the
_triclinium_. Its wall decorations expressed old Bambilio's enthusiasm for
Alexandrian art and literature. The ceiling was adorned with a copy of
Apellides' Dance of the Loves; and the walls were decorated with copies of
equally celebrated paintings by masters of similar fame. The wall niches
were filled with statues of the Alexandrian poets, the two opposite the
entrance door with those of Euphorion and Philetas, the brilliant hues of
the paint on them depicting garments as gaudy as I myself had been wearing
a few days before. From the pink faces of the bedizened poets their
jeweled eyes sparkled as if they were chuckling at the situation. Under
the mellow light shed by the numerous hanging lamps, against the intricate
particolored patterns of the wall between the statue-niches, I saw the
vacuous baby face of Asellia, Bambilio's pretty doll of a wife, between
Vedia's countenance cleverly assuming a normal social expression after her
brief glare at me, and Nemestronia's mask of horror, accentuated by the
agony of the gripping spasm which throttled her, for the pain in her chest
was induced by anything which startled her, and was not assumed.
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