"Why do you go to that church?" Julian asked her one day.
"I don't know; it is comfortable there. Have you seen the Good Shepherd?"
"Yes, the Galilean! How did you know about Him?"
"Old Theodula told me. Ever since then I have gone to church; and, tell me, Julian, why do they all hate the Good Shepherd?"
At this moment Olympiodorus returned in triumph and narrated his interview with the patrician lady, a young girl whom her betrothed had abandoned. She believed him bewitched by the amulets of a rival. Many a time had she gone to the Christian church and besought St. Mamas with an aching heart, but neither fasts nor prostrations had snapped the evil charm.
"As if the Christians could console her!" Olympiodorus contemptuously concluded, throwing a keen glance at the attentive Psyche. "This Christian girl has now sought my help, and Aphrodite will heal her!"
He produced the two white pigeons, bound together, which the Christian had begged him to offer as a sacrifice to the goddess of love. Amaryllis took the little creatures in her hand, and kissed their rosy beaks, declaring that it would be a thousand pities to kill them.
"Father, we will offer them to the goddess without spilling a drop of blood!"
"How? There can be no sacrifice without bloodshed."
"We will give them liberty. They shall fly away clean into heaven, straight to the footstool of Aphrodite. Is she not in the sky? She will accept them. Let me do this, darling father, I beg of you!"
Olympiodorus had not the heart to deny this entreaty; and the young girl, unbinding the pigeons tossed them back to liberty. They fled away into the sky with a delirious beating of white wings, making for the footstool of Aphrodite. Shading his eyes with his hands the priest watched the offering of the convert disappear into the clouds, while Amaryllis danced with joy, crying--
"Aphrodite, Aphrodite, receive the gift!"
Olympiodorus went out. Julian, solemn-faced and timorous, approached Amaryllis; his cheeks grew red, and his voice trembled as he pronounced the name of the young girl.
"Ah! I have long been going to ask you what it could be."
"It is a galley with three banks of oars!"
He immediately began to unroll his present, but suddenly aware that Amaryllis was watching him, he felt ineffable shame, became confused, and with an imploring look at the damsel, slid the ship into the basin of the fountain.