"And what answer did you give to these exceedingly original proposals ?" "The only one I could very well give.

I said no--but I declared myself ready, not from fear, but because we owe much to the temple, to perform any other service with Irene, only not this one." "And Asclepiodorus ?" "He said nothing unkind to me, and preserved his calm and polite demeanor when I contradicted him, though he fixed his eyes on me several times in astonishment as if he had discovered in me something quite new and strange.

At last he went on to remind me how much trouble the temple singing-master had taken with us, how well my low voice went with Irene's high one, how much applause we might gain by a fine performance of the hymns of lamentation, and how he would be willing, if we undertook the duties of the twin-sisters, to give us a better dwelling and more abundant food.

I believe he has been trying to make us amenable by supplying us badly with food, just as falcons are trained by hunger.
Perhaps I am doing him an injustice, but I feel only too much disposed to-day to think the worst of him and of the other fathers.

Be that as it may; at any rate he made me no further answer when I persisted in my refusal, but dismissed me with an injunction to present myself before him again in three days' time, and then to inform him definitively whether I would conform to his wishes, or if I proposed to leave the temple.