ted messenger, had Keraunus and his daughter been carried.

Verus needed a longer time than the boy, to make his way through the
crowd. At the door of the prefect's residence he laid aside his mask,
and in an anteroom where the steward was sitting on a couch waiting for
his daughter, he arranged his hair and the folds of his toga, and was
then conducted to the lady Julia with whom he hoped, once more, to see
the charming Arsinoe.

But in the reception-room, instead of Arsinoe he found his own wife and
the poetess Balbilla and her companion. He greeted the ladies gaily,
amiably and gracefully, as usual, and then, as he looked enquiringly
round the large room without concealing his disappointment, Balbilla
came up to him and asked him in a low voice:

"Can you be honest, Verus?"

"When circumstances allow it, yes."

"And will they allow it here?"

"I should suppose so."

"Then answer me truly. Did you come here for Julia's sake, or did you
come--"

"Well?"

"Or did you expect to find the fair Roxana with the prefect's wife?"

"Roxana?" asked Verus, with a cunning smile. "Roxana! Why she was the
wife of Alexander the Great, and is long since dead, but I care only
for the living, and when I left the merry tumult in the streets it was
simply and solely--"

"You excite my curiosity."

"Because my prophetic heart promised me, fairest Balbilla, that I should
find you here."

"And that you call honest!" cried the poetess, hitting the praetor a
blow with the stick of the ostrich-feather fan she held in her hand.
"Only listen, Lucilla, your husband declares he came here for my sake."
The praetor looked reproachfully at the speaker, but she whispered:

"Due punishment for a dishonest man." Then, raising her voice, she said:

"Do you know, Lucilla, that if I remain unmarried, your husband is not
wholly innocent in the matter."

"Alas! yes, I was born too late for you," interrupted Verus, who knew
very well what the poetess was about to say.

"Nay--no misunderstanding!" cried Balbilla. "For how can a woman venture
upon wedlock when she cannot but fear the possibility of getting such a
husband as Verus."

"And what man," retorted the praetor, "would ever be so bold as to court
Balbilla, could he hear how cruelly she judges an innocent admirer of
beauty?"

"A husband ought not to admire beauty--only the one beauty who is his
wife."

"Ah Vestal maiden," laughed Verus. "I am meanwhile punishing you by
withhold