The Broad Highway

Charmian sighed, bit the end of her pen, and sighed again. She

was deep in her housekeeping accounts, adding and subtracting

and, between whiles, regarding the result with a rueful frown.

Her sleeves were rolled up over her round, white arms, and I

inwardly wondered if the much vaunted Phryne's were ever more

perfect in their modelling, or of a fairer texture. Had I

possessed the genius of a Praxiteles I might have given to the

world a masterpiece of beauty to replace his vanished Venus of

Cnidus; but, as it happened, I was only a humble blacksmith, and

she a fair woman who sighed, and nibbled her pen, and sighed

again.

"What is it, Charmian?"

"Compound addition, Peter, and I hate figures I detest, loathe,

and abominate them--especially when they won't balance!"

"Then never mind them," said I.

"Never mind them, indeed--the idea, Sir! How can I help minding

them when living costs so much and we so poor?"

"Are we?" said I.

"Why, of course we are."

"Yes--to be sure--I suppose we are," said I dreamily.

Lais was beautiful, Thais was alluring, and Berenice was famous

for her beauty, but then, could either of them have shown such

arms--so long, so graceful in their every movement, so subtly

rounded in their lines, arms which, for all their seeming

firmness, must (I thought) be wonderfully soft to the touch, and

smooth as ivory, and which found a delicate sheen where the light

kissed them?

"We have spent four shillings for meat this week, Peter!" said

Charmian, glancing up suddenly.

"Good!" said I.

"Nonsense, sir--four shillings is most extravagant!"

"Oh!--is it, Charmian?"

"Why, of course it is."

"Oh!" said I; "yes--perhaps it is."

"Perhaps!" said she, curling her lip at me, "perhaps, indeed!"

Having said which, Charmian became absorbed in her accounts

again, and I in Charmian.

In Homer we may read that the loveliness of Briseis caused

Achilles much sorrow; Ovid tells us that Chione was beautiful

enough to inflame two gods, and that Antiope's beauty drew down

from heaven the mighty Jove himself; and yet, was either of them

formed and shaped more splendidly than she who sat so near me,

frowning at what she had written, and petulantly biting her pen?

"Impossible!" said I, so suddenly that Charmian started and

dropped her pen, which I picked up, feeling very like a fool.

"What did you mean by 'impossible,' Peter?"