the gods that you are," replied Antinous.

"What happy phrases the boy hits upon sometimes," said Hadrian with a
laugh, and he stroked the lad's brown curls. "Now till noon I must work
with Phlegon and Titianus, whom I am expecting, and then perhaps we
may find something to laugh at. Ask the tall sculptor there behind the
screens, at what hour Balbilla is to sit to him for her bust. We must
also inspect the architect's work, and that of the Alexandrian artists
by daylight; that, their zeal has well deserved."

Hadrian retired to the room where his private secretary had ready for
him the despatches and papers for Rome and the provinces, which the
Emperor was required to read and to sign. Antinous remained alone in the
sitting-room, and for an hour he continued to gaze at the ships which
came to anchor in the harbor, or sailed out of the roads, and amused
himself with watching the swift boats which swarmed round the larger
vessels, like wasps round ripe fruit. He listened to the songs of the
sailors, and the music of the flute-players, to the measured beat of
the oars, which came up from the triremes in the private harbor of the
Emperor as they went out to sea. Even the pure blue of the sky and the
warmth of the delicious morning were a pleasure to him, and he asked
himself whether the smell of tar, which pervaded the seaport, were
agreeable or not.

Presently as the sun mounted in the sky, its bright sphere dazzled him;
he left the window with a yawn, stretched himself on a couch, and stared
absently up at the ceiling of the room without thinking of the subject
which the faded picture on it was intended to represent.

Idleness had long since grown to be the occupation of his life; but
accustomed to it as he was, he was sometimes conscious of its dark
attendant shadow ennui--as of a disagreeable and intrusive interruption
to the enjoyment of life. Generally in such lonely hours of idle reverie
his thoughts reverted to his belongings in Bithynia, of whom he never
dared to speak before the Emperor, or perhaps of the hunting excursions
he had made with Hadrian, of the slaughtered game, of the fish he--an
experienced angler--had caught, or such like. What the future might
bring him troubled him not, for to the love of creativeness, to
ambition--to all, in short, that bore any resemblance to a passionate
excitement his soul had, so far, remained a stranger. The admiration
which was universally excited by his beauty gave him