what price one ought to pay for a true and honourable lover?” I wondered what he could take me for, and answered at once that one ought not to pay anything.
He looked at me searchingly, and nodded his head. “An answer worthy, Alexias, of your father’s son. Yet many things have their price which are not upon the market. Let us see if this is one of them. If we come into the company of such a lover, it seems to me that one of three things will happen. Either he will succeed in making us his equal in honour; or, if he fails both to do this and to free himself from love, seeking to please us he will become less good than he was; or, if he is of stronger mind, remembering what is due to the gods and to his own soul, he will be master of himself, and go away. Or can you see some other conclusion than these?”