rrupted the Empress with a hideous smile. "Do
not you think Domitia Lucilla, that she ought to allow your husband to be
of service to her?"

"If the Empress thinks it right and fitting," replied the lady raising
her shoulders, and with an expressive movement of her hands. Sabina quite
took her meaning, and suppressing another yawn she said angrily:

"In these days we must be indulgent toward a husband who has chosen
Ovid's amatory poems as his faithful companion. What is the matter
Titianus?"

While Balbilla had been relating her meeting with the sculptor Pollux, a
chamberlain had brought in to the prefect an important letter, admitting
of no delay. The state official had withdrawn to the farther side of the
room with it, had broken the strong seal and had just finished reading
it, when the Empress asked her question.

Nothing of what went on around her escaped Sabina's little eyes, and she
had observed that while the governor was considering the document
addressed to him he had moved uneasily. It must contain something of
importance.

"An urgent letter," replied Titianus, "calls me home. I must take my
leave, and I hope ere long to be able to communicate to you something
agreeable."

"What does that letter contain?"

"Important news from the provinces," said Titianus.

"May I inquire what?"

"I grieve to say that I must answer in the negative. The Emperor
expressly desired that this matter should be kept secret. Its settlement
demands the promptest haste, and I am therefore unfortunately obliged to
quit you immediately."

Sabina returned the prefect's parting salutations with icy coldness and
immediately desired to be conducted to her private rooms to dress herself
for supper.

Balbilla escorted her, and Florus betook himself to the "Olympian table,"
the famous eating-house kept by Lycortas, of whom he had been told
wonders by the epicures at Rome.

When Verus was alone with his wife he went up in a friendly manner and
said:

"May I drive you home again?"

Domitia Lucilla had thrown herself on a couch, and covered her face with
her hands, and she made no reply. "May I?" repeated the praetor. As his
wife persisted in her silence, he went nearer to her, laid his hand on
her slender fingers that concealed her face, and said:

"I believe you are angry with me!" She pushed away his hand, with a
slight movement, and said: "Leave me."

"Yes, unfortunately I must leave you. Business takes me into the city