d her; the
hardest task shall not be too hard, the best shall not be too good, if
only we may open the gates of Heaven to my poor father's imperilled
soul."

As he spoke his eye glistened with ecstatic light; his brother, too, was
touched, and to hide his emotion, he exclaimed, more recklessly and
sharply than was his wont:

"That will come all right, never fear, lad!" But he hastily wiped his
eyes with his hand, slapped Marcus on the shoulder, and added gaily: "It
is better to choke than to swallow down the thing you think right, and it
never hurt a man yet to make a clean breast of his feelings, even if we
do not quite agree we understand each other the better for it. I have my
way of thinking, you have yours; thus we each know what the other means;
but after the tragedy comes the satyr play, and we may as well finish
this agitating evening with an hour's friendly chat."

So saying Demetrius stretched himself on a divan and invited Marcus to do
the same, and in a few minutes their conversation had turned, as usual,
to the subject of horses. Marcus was full of praises of the stallions his
brother had bred for him, and which he had ridden that very day round the
Myssa--[The Myssa was the Meta, or turning-post]--in the Hippodrome, and
his brother added with no small complacency:

"They were all bred from the same sire and from the choicest mares. I
broke them in myself, and I only wish. . . . But why did you not come to the
stables this morning?"

"I could not," replied Marcus coloring slightly. Then we will go
to-morrow to Nicopolis and I will show you how to get Megaera past the
Taraxippios."--[The terror of the horses.]

"To-morrow?" said Marcus somewhat embarrassed. "In the morning I must go
to see Eusebius and then. . . ."

"Well, then?"

"Then I must--I mean I should like. . . ."

"What?"

"Well, to be sure I might, all the same.--But no, it is not to be done--I
have. . . ."

"What, what?" cried Demetrius with increasing impatience: "My time is
limited and if you start the horses without knowing my way of managing
them they will certainly not do their best. As soon as the market begins
to fill we will set out. We shall need a few hours for the Hippodrome,
then we will dine with Damon, and before dark. . . ."

"No, no," replied Marcus, "to-morrow, certainly, I positively
cannot. . . ."

"People who have nothing to do always lack time," replied the other. "Is
to-morrow one of your festivals?"

"No