honor to the handsome boy with offerings of flowers, and the
opinion of that one person weighed with her more than that of all the
rest of the men and women she knew, put together.

This one was Pontius the architect; and yet, strangely enough, it was
precisely her remembrance of him that urged her on from one folly to
another. She had often seen the architect in Alexandria, and when they
parted she had allowed him to promise to follow her and the Empress, and
to escort them at any rate for a part of their voyage up the Nile. But he
came not, nor had he sent any report of himself, though he was alive and
well, and every express that overtook them brought documents for Caesar
in his handwriting.

So he, on whose faithful devotion she had built as on a rock, was no less
self-seeking and fickle than other men. She thought of him every day and
every hour; and as soon as a vessel from the north cast anchor within
sight, she watched the voyagers as they disembarked to detect him among
them. She longed for Pontius as a traveller who has lost his way sighs
for a sight of the guide who has deserted him; and yet she was angry with
him, for he had betrayed by a thousand tokens that he esteemed and cared
for her, that she had a certain power over his strong will--and now he
had broken his word and did not come.

And she? She had not been unmoved by his devotion, and had been gentler
to this grandson of her father's freed slave than to the best-born man of
her own rank. And in spite of it all Pontius could spoil all the pleasure
of her journey and stay in Alexandria instead of following in her wake.
He could easily have intrusted his building to other architects--the
great metropolis was swarming with them! Well, if he did not trouble
himself about her she certainly need care even less about him. Perhaps at
last, at the end of their travels he might yet come, and then he should
see how much she cared for his admonitions.

But she sighed impatiently for the hour when she might read him all the
verses she had addressed to Antinous, and ask him how he liked them. It
gave her a childish pleasure to add to the number of these little poems,
to finish them elaborately, and display in them all her knowledge and
ability. She gave the preference to artificial and massive metres; some
of the verses were in Latin, others in the Attic, and others again in the
Aeolian dialects of Greek, for she had now learnt to use this, and all to
punish Po