Here they seated themselves before a small table spread with dishes containing fruit and eggs, and various cold meats, with vases of excellent wine, of which while the companions partook, a curtain, drawn across the entrance opening to the court, concealed them from view, but admonished them by the thinness of the partition to speak low, or to speak no secrets: they chose the former alternative.
'Thou knowest,' said Arbaces, in a voice that scarcely stirred the air, so soft and inward was its sound, 'that it has ever been my maxim to attach myself to the young.

From their flexile and unformed minds I can carve out my fittest tools.

I weave--I warp--I mould them at my will.
Of the men I make merely followers or servants; of the women...' 'Mistresses,' said Calenus, as a livid grin distorted his ungainly features.
'Yes, I do not disguise it: woman is the main object, the great appetite, of my soul.

As you feed the victim for the slaughter, I love to rear the votaries of my pleasure.

I love to train, to ripen their minds--to unfold the sweet blossom of their hidden passions, in order to prepare the fruit to my taste.