She was not in the kitchen because it was in any way essential, but simply because it was pleasant on occasion to putter about the house, and the cook wished that she would go away and leave him alone. He was well aware of his rather exalted station as a man of extraordinary talent in his trade, and this caused him to feel secure in the assumption of a certain air of independence, but he was a shrewd fellow and also aware, on the other hand, that his independence was severely qualified by slavery. Not wishing to force an issue that could only be uncomfortable to himself in the end, he had learned to judge with a nice precision the almost exact limit of Lysistrata’s tolerance. He was allowed to grunt and look sullen, which he did, but not to be overtly abusive, which he never was. “Mistress,” said Theoris, “Calonice, wife of Acron, is waiting for you.” “Calonice?” Lysistrata turned to Theoris with a look of surprise. “Calonice again? It was only the day before yesterday that she was here.”
