with
her own sound sense, that the Honor which had fallen upon her yesterday,
threatened to develop all her father's weaknesses in an absolutely fatal
manner.

To-day she would have been amply satisfied with pleasing Pollux, and she
would, without a regret have transferred to another her part with all the
applause and admiration it would procure her, and which, only yesterday,
had seemed to her so inestimably precious. This she said; but Keraunus
would not take the assertion in earnest, laughed in her face, went off
into mysterious allusions to the wealth which could not fail to come into
the house and--since an obscure consciousness told him that it would be
becoming him to prove that it was not solely personal vanity and
self-esteem that influenced all his proceedings--he explained that he had
made up his mind to a great sacrifice and would be content on the coming
occasion to wear his gilt fillet and not buy a pure gold one. By this act
of self-denial he fancied he had acquired a full right to devote a very
pretty little sum to the acquisition of a fine-looking slave. Arsinoe's
entreaties were unheeded, and when she began to cry with grief at the
prospect of losing her old house-mate he forbid her crossly to shed a
tear for such a cause, for it was very childish, and he would not be
pleased to conduct her with red eyes to meet the prefect's wife.

During the course of this argument his hair had got itself duly curled,
and he now desired Arsinoe to arrange her own hair nicely and then to
accompany him.

They would buy a new dress and peplum, go to see Selene, and then be
carried to the prefect's.

Only yesterday he had thought it too bold a step to use a litter, and
to-day he was already considering the propriety of hiring a chariot.

No sooner was he alone than a new idea occurred to him. The insolent
architect should be taught that he was not the man to be insulted and
injured with impunity. So he cut a clean strip of papyrus off a letter
that lay in his chest, and wrote upon it the following words:

"Keraunus, the Macedonian, to Claudius Venator, the architect, of Rome:"

"My eldest daughter, Selene, is by your fault, so severely hurt that she
is in great danger, is kept to her bed and suffers frightful pain. My
other children are no longer safe in their father's house, and I
therefore require you, once more, to chain up your dog. If you refuse to
accede to this reasonable demand I will lay the matter before