He paused when Rian stood up, made a point of slowly pushing back her chair, and slowly, gracefully, stood up, unbuttoning her suit jacket. She walked around Harley’s chair, and started to trace a line with her fingertips on the gleaming surface of the conference table.

“Let me tell a different story from the one we just heard from the esteemed professor …”

All eyes swung in her direction.

What is she doing? Harley thought to herself.

Rian continued to walk slowly, hips swaying to-and-fro, encased in the close-fitting suit. She kept her eyes trained on her fingertips as it caressed the conference table. “That story is about the woman who is represented in a mere 8 cm of ancient stone that we are bartering today. Phryne was a beautiful, sensual, proud, uninhibited figure of the highest courts of Ancient Greece in the 4^th century BC. She was wealthy in her own right, very unusual for women during her time, had many lovers, considered dangerously alluring, and was most likely a high-class courtesan.”

Rian slowly rounded the corner of the vast conference table. She didn’t have a microphone on, but her voice had a hypnotic quality to it. It carried easily to the people assembled in the center of the room, all of whom sat silently, eyes fixed on her, mesmerized. Rian started to part the lapels of her suit jacket as she continued, “But she was not considered immoral – she was a hetaera, the only class of woman in Greek society permitted to run her own household and manage finances and had the freedom to admit to her company whomsoever … and however many … she chose.”

“By any measure she was a remarkable historical figure, considered to be a template for many women figures that followed in her wake, down through history, even to the present day.”

“It would be a mistake to underestimate her, as many men did, or think that she was a middle-of-the-pack figure, not only in terms of history, but most especially in terms of her place in art. So … no … a well-executed … and well-preserved statue of her … as this one is … will never be middle-of-the-road, as you’ve described it.”

“But let me illustrate her enduring hold on the imagination of artists and sculptors, and connoisseurs of art, especially men, with a story about Phryne …”