e architect and his assistants should be disturbed, but began in
the tone of the messenger in a tragedy:

"The first quarrel was fought over the order of the procession."

"Sit a little farther off," said Sabina pressing her jewelled right-hand
on her ear, as if she were suffering a pain in it. The prefect colored
slightly, but he obeyed the desire of Caesar's wife and went on with his
story, pitching his voice in a somewhat lower key than before:

"Well, it was about the procession, that the first breach of the peace
arose."

"I have heard that once already," replied the lady, yawning. "I like
processions."

"But," said the prefect, a man in the beginning of the sixties--and he
spoke with some irritation, "here as in Rome and every where else, where
they are not controlled by the absolute will of a single individual,
processions are the children of strife, and they bring forth strife,
even when they are planned in honor of a festival of Peace."

"It seems to annoy you that they should be organized in honor of
Hadrian?"

"You are in jest; it is precisely because I care particularly that they
should be carried out with all possible splendor, that I am troubling
myself about them in person, even as to details; and to my great
satisfaction I have been able even to subdue the most obstinate; still
it was scarcely my duty--"

"I fancied that you not only served the state but were my husband's
friend."

"I am proud to call myself so."

"Aye--Hadrian has many, very many friends since he has worn the purple.
Have you got over your ill temper Titianus? You must have become very
touchy. Poor Julia has an irritable husband!"

"She is less to be pitied than you think," said Titianus with dignity,
"for my official duties so entirely claim my time that she is not often
likely to know what disturbs me. If I have forgotten to dissimulate my
vexation before you, I beg you to pardon me, and to attribute it to my
zeal in securing a worthy reception for Hadrian."

"As if I had scolded you! But to return to your wife--as I understand
she shares the fate I endure. We poor women have nothing to expect from
our husbands, but the stale leavings that remain after business has
absorbed the rest! But your story--go on with your story."

"The worst moments I had at all were given me by the bad feeling of the
Jews towards the other citizens."

"I hate all these infamous sects--Jews, Christians or whatever they are
called! Do they d