The Emperor. Complete

Mastor nodded assent.

“Only think,” laughed Verus. “Then he too is beginning to think it better worth while to admire than to be admired. And who is the fair one who has succeeded in waking up his slumbering heart?”

“Nay—I promised him not to chatter.”

“And I promise you the same. My powers of reserve are far greater than my curiosity even.”

“Be content, I beseech you with what you already know.”

“But to know half is less endurable than to know nothing.”

“Nay—I cannot tell you.”

“Then am I to begin with fresh suggestions, and all over again?”

“Oh! my lord. I beg you, entreat you—”

“Out with the word, and I go on my way, but if you persist in refusing—”

“Really and truly it only concerns a white-faced girl whom you would not even look at.”

“A girl-indeed!”

“Our big dog threw the poor thing down.”

“In the street?”

“No, at Lochias. Her father is Keraunus the palace-steward.”

“And her name is Arsinoe?” asked Verus with undisguised concern, for he had a pleasant recollection of the beautiful child who had been selected to fill the part of Roxana.

“No, her name is Selene, Arsinoe indeed is her younger sister.”

“Then you bring these flowers from Lochias?”

“She went out, and she could not get back home again, she is now lying in the house of a stranger.”

“Where?”

“That must be quite indifferent to you—”

“By no means, quite the contrary. I beg you to tell me the whole truth.”

“Eternal gods! what can you care about the poor sick creature?”

“Nothing whatever; but I must know whither you are riding.”

“Down by the sea. I do not know the house, but the donkey driver—”

“Is it far from here?”

“About half an hour yet,” said the lad.

“A good way then,” replied Verus. “And Hadrian is particularly anxious to remain unknown.”

“Certainly.”

“And you his body-servant, who are known to numbers of others here from Rome, like myself, you propose to ride half a mile through the streets where every creature that can stand or walk is swarming, with a large nosegay in your hand which attracts every body’s attention. Oh Mastor that is not wise!”

The slave started, and seeing at once that Verus was right, he asked in alarm:

“What then can I do?”

“Get off your donkey,” said the praetor. “Disguise yourself and make merry to your heart’s content with these gold pieces.”

“And the flowers?”

“I will see to that.”

“You will? I may trust you; and never betray to Antinous what you compelled me to do?”

“Positively not.”

“There—there are the flowers, but I cannot take the gold.”

“Then I shall fling it among the crowd. Buy yourself a garland, a mask and some wine, as much as you can carry. Where is the girl to be found?”

“At dame Hannah’s. She lives in a little house in a garden belonging to the widow of Pudeus. And whoever gives it to her is to say that it is sent by the friend at Lochias.”

“Good. Now go, and take care that no one recognizes you. Your secret is mine, and the friend at Lochias shall be duly mentioned.”

Mastor disappeared in the crowd. Verus put the nosegay into the hands of one of the garden-gods that followed in his train, sprang laughing on to the ass, and desired the driver to show him the way. At the corner of the next street, he met two litters, carried with difficulty through the crowd by their bearers. In the first sat Keraunus, whose saffron-colored cloak was conspicuous from afar, as fat as Silenus the companion of Dionysus, but looking very sullen. In the second sat Arsinoe, looking gaily about her, and so fresh and pretty that the Roman’s easily-stirred pulses beat more rapidly.

Without reflecting, he took the flowers from the hand of the garden-god—the flowers intended for Selene—laid them on the girl’s litter, and said:

“Alexander greets Roxana, the fairest of the fair.” Arsinoe colored, and Verus, after watching her for some time as she was carried onwards, desired one of his boys to follow her litter, and to join him again in the flower-market, where he would wait, to inform him whither she had gone.

The messenger hurried off, and Verus, turning his ass’s head soon reached a semicircular pillared hall on the shady side of a large open space, under which the better sort of gardeners and flower dealers of the city exposed their gay and fragrant wares to be sold by pretty girls. To-day every stall had been particularly well supplied, but the demand for wreaths and flowers had steadily increased from an early hour, and although Verus had all that he could find of fresh flowers arranged and tied together, still the nosegay, though much larger, was not half so beautiful as that intended for Selene, and for which he substituted it.

Now this annoyed the Roman. His sense of justice prompted him to make good the loss he had inflicted on the sick girl. Gay ribbons were wound round the stalks of the flowers, and the long ends floated in the air, so Verus took a brooch from his dress and stuck it into the bow which ornamented the stem of the nosegay; then he was satisfied, and as he looked at the stone set in a gold border—an onyx on which was engraved Eros sharpening his arrows—he pictured to himself the pleasure, the delight of the girl that the handsome Bithynian loved, as she received the beautiful gift.

His slaves, natives of Britain, who were dressed as garden-gods, were charged with the commission to proceed to dame Hannah’s under the guidance of the donkey-driver to deliver the nosegay to Selene from ‘the friend at Lochias,’ and then to wait for him outside the house of Titianus, the prefect; for thither, as he had ascertained from his swift-footed messenger, had Keraunus and his daughter been carried.

Verus needed a longer time than the boy, to make his way through the crowd. At the door of the prefect’s residence he laid aside his mask, and in an anteroom where the steward was sitting on a couch waiting for his daughter, he arranged his hair and the folds of his toga, and was then conducted to the lady Julia with whom he hoped, once more, to see the charming Arsinoe.

But in the reception-room, instead of Arsinoe he found his own wife and the poetess Balbilla and her companion. He greeted the ladies gaily, amiably and gracefully, as usual, and then, as he looked enquiringly round the large room without concealing his disappointment, Balbilla came up to him and asked him in a low voice:

“Can you be honest, Verus?”