Scarcely had they left the antechamber than Adventus called Melissa and
Philostratus to the emperor. Caracalla was seated on a raised throne of
gold and ivory, with bright scarlet cushions. As on the preceding day,
he was magnificently dressed, and wore a laurel wreath on his head. The
lion, who lay chained beside the throne, stirred as he caught sight of
the new-comers, which caused Caracalla to exclaim to Melissa: "You have
stayed away from me so long that my 'Sword of Persia' fails to recognize
you. Were it not more to my taste to show you how dear you are to me, I
could be angry with you, coy bird that you are!"

As Melissa bent respectfully before him, he gazed delighted into her
glowing face, saying, as he turned half to her and half to Philostratus:
"How she blushes! She is ashamed that, though I could get no sleep
during the night, and was tortured by an indescribable restlessness,
she refused to obey my call, although she very well knows that the one
remedy for her sleepless friend lies in her beautiful little hand. Hush,
hush! The high-priest has told me that you did not sleep beneath the
same roof as I. But that only turned my thoughts in the right direction.
Child, child!--See now, Philostratus--the red rose has become a white
one. And how timid she is! Not that it offends me, far from it--it
delights me.--Those flowers, Philostratus! Take them, Melissa; they add
less to your beauty than you to theirs." He seized the splendid roses
he had ordered for her early that morning and fastened the finest in her
girdle himself. She did not forbid him, and stammered a few-low words of
thanks.

How his face glowed! His eyes rested in ecstatic delight upon his chosen
one. In this past night, after he had called for her and waited in
vain with feverish longing for her coming, it had dawned on him with
convincing force that this gentle child had awakened a new, intense
passion in him. He loved her, and he was glad of it--he who till now had
taken but a passing pleasure in beautiful women. Longing for her till it
became torture, he swore to himself to make her his, and share his all
with her, even to the purple.

It was not his habit to hesitate, and at daybreak he had sent for his
mother's messengers that they might inform her of his resolve. No one
dared to gainsay him, and he expected it least of all from her whom he
designed to raise so high. But she felt utterly estranged from him, and
would gladly have told him to