to give rise to a change of his whole inner being.

The feeling that every one was pointing at him the finger of scorn, or of
wrath, had never ceased to pursue him. And he had been under no illusion;
for when he met the old sculptor Lysander, who only yesterday had so
kindly told him and Melissa about Caesar's mother, as he nodded from the
chariot his greeting was not returned; and the honest artist had waved
his hand with a gesture which no Alexandrian could fail to understand as
meaning, "I no longer know you, and do not wish to be recognized by you."

He had from his childhood loved Diodoros as a brother, and in one of the
side streets, down which the chariot had turned to avoid the tumult in
the Kanopic way, Alexander had seen his old friend. He had desired the
charioteer to stop, and had leaped out on the road to speak to Diodoros
and give him at once Melissa's message; but the young man had turned his
back with evident displeasure, and to the painter's pathetic appeal,
"But, at any rate, hear me!" he answered, sharply: "The less I hear of
you and yours the better for me. Go on--go on, in Caesar's chariot!"

With this he had turned away and knocked at the door of an architect who
was known to them both; and Alexander, tortured with painful feelings,
had gone on, and for the first time the idea had taken possession of him
that he had indeed descended to the part of spy when he had betrayed to
Caesar what Alexandrian wit had to say about him. He could, of course,
tell himself that he would rather have faced death or imprisonment than
have betrayed to Caracalla the name of one of the gibers; still, he had
to admit to himself that, but for the hope of saving his father and
brother from death and imprisonment, he would hardly have done Caesar
such service. The mercy shown to them was certainly too like payment, and
his own part in the matter struck him as hateful and base. His
fellow-townsmen had a right to bear him a grudge, and his friends to keep
out of his way. A feeling came over him of bitter self-contempt, hitherto
strange to him; and he understood for the first time how Philip could
regard life as a burden and call it a malicious Danaus-gift of the gods.
When, finally, in the Kanopic way, close in front of Seleukus's house, a
youth unknown to him cried, scornfully, as the chariot was slowly making
its way through the throng, "The brother-in-law of Tarautas!" he had
great difficulty in restraining himself from le