The youth greeted the Greek with a smile.
"Are you no longer busy?" asked Actæon with paternal kindness. "Have you finished your work?"
The boy answered with a gesture of indifference: "My work! Do not laugh at me, Greek. I have nothing to do."
"She is in the top of that tree, gathering the finest cherries for me. She climbs like a wood-nymph and she will not let me go with her. She is afraid I shall hurt myself."
The branches of the cherry tree shook, and the shepherdess descended, agile as a squirrel, her limbs bare, her skirt gathered up and filled with cherries. She and her lover devoured them amid laughter, their lips ruddy with the crimson fruit-juice, and they decorated each other's hair or hung yokes of cherries over their ears, forming picturesque ruby-colored earrings.
Actæon smiled at the strong, handsome young folks who ever sought each other's company and frolicked as if they were in the heart of the desert, giving no heed to the danger threatening the city.
Erotion and Rhanto laughed at the recollection.
"I smashed the figure to pieces," said the boy. "I broke the clay into fragments, and I have decided to touch no other than that in the pottery--when I make up my mind to return there."
He flung his arms around the shepherdess and rested his head upon her shoulder, rubbing his cheek against her neck with an almost feline caress.
"Why should I work?" he added. "I spent many days kneeling before that accursed clay, struggling to make it take on the form of her body; but it is useless. Clay is clay, and it cannot become living substance. When the soft flesh of my Rhanto is within reach of my hand, it is folly to grow desperate trying to mold earth into a semblance of her life. I wish to dream no more, Athenian. I will be content with what I have."
With sublime indifference he caressed his playmate in Actæon's presence.
"One day," continued the boy, "I saw clearly, and I understood the truth. Rhanto stood before me. Blinded by ambition I had seen in her only the model, but that day I beheld the woman. Why seek glory when I had love before me! Even though I should mould a great statue, what should I gain? That people should say, after I am dead, 'Erotion the Saguntine made this.' I should not hear it--after having spent my life working and suffering. No; let us live and love. That day I kicked the statue to pieces, and I embraced Rhanto with an enthusiasm of joy. Loving each other is better than wasting time over clay puppets. Is not that so, Rhanto?"