“We were—we are—bound for Athens,” Sostratos said. “Now I hope we stay here for a while.” Did he really mean that? Part of him did, at any rate, and he knew just which part. Which was more important in the general scheme of things, a woman or the gryphon's skull? I can find women anywhere, he thought. There's only one gryphon's skull. But the physical pleasure the hetaira had given him was less easy to surmount for the pleasures of the mind than Platon had made it out to be. Realizing that made Sostratos leave Metrikhe's house faster than he would have otherwise. He made his way back to the agora, where he found Menedemos dickering over silk with a plump man who had the look of someone knowing himself to be important. After his cousin made the bargain—a better one than he'd got from Metrikhe himself—and sent the fellow on his way; he turned to Sostratos and said, “Well, my dear, I stopped back here for what I thought would be only a moment. It was just long enough to hear where you'd gone and to talk with that chap. You had a rugged bit of duty there, didn't you? Is she pretty?” “As a matter of fact, yes,” Sostratos answered. “And did she give you half the price in trade?” Menedemos went on. “Of course not. We need the silver.” Sostratos held up the sack of coins. He told Menedemos what he'd sold and how much he'd got. “Not the best bargain in the world, but passable, passable,” his cousin said. “So you didn't get anything more from her than a smile and the money, eh?” “I didn't say that,” Sostratos replied, and had the satisfaction of seeing Menedemos look very jealous indeed. 9 “We're about ready to sail for Athens,” Menedemos told Sostratos as they stood on the Aphrodites poop deck after several profitable days in Miletos, “All right,” his cousin said. Menedemos laughed. “ 'All right? Is that the best you can manage? Before we got here, you would have been happy to skip this town and head straight for Cape Sounion, and you know it as well as I do.” “I still want to go,” Sostratos said, sounding like a man doing his best not to sound annoyed. “You're making it seem as though I can't tear myself away from Metrikhe, and that isn't true.” “Well, maybe not.” Menedemos laughed again. “You do come up for air every now and then—the way a dolphin does before it dives deep into the sea. Except you're diving deep into her—”
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