too," said he. And Vinicius, though every
obstacle angered him, had begun to understand that Glaucus, as a
Christian, said what he ought to say. He had not become clearly
conscious that one of the deepest changes in his nature was this,--that
formerly he had measured people and things only by his own selfishness,
but now he was accustoming himself gradually to the thought that other
eyes might see differently, other hearts feel differently, and that
justice did not mean always the same as personal profit.

He wished often to see Paul of Tarsus, whose discourse made him curious
and disturbed him. He arranged in his mind arguments to overthrow his
teaching, he resisted him in thought; still he wished to see him and to
hear him. Paul, however, had gone to Aricium, and, since the visits of
Glaucus had become rarer, Vinicius was in perfect solitude. He began
again to run through back streets adjoining the Subura, and narrow lanes
of the Trans-Tiber, in the hope that even from a distance he might see
Lygia. When even that hope failed him, weariness and impatience began to
rise in his heart. At last the time came when his former nature was felt
again mightily, like that onrush of a wave to the shore from which it
had receded. It seemed to him that he had been a fool to no purpose,
that he had stuffed his head with things which brought sadness, that he
ought to accept from life what it gives. He resolved to forget Lygia, or
at least to seek pleasure and the use of things aside from her. He felt
that this trial, however, was the last, and he threw himself into it
with all the blind energy of impulse peculiar to him. Life itself seemed
to urge him to this course.

THE APPIAN WAY. From the painting by G. Boulanger.

The city, torpid and depopulated by winter, began to revive with hope
of the near coming of Caesar. A solemn reception was in waiting for him.
Meanwhile spring was there; the snow on the Alban Hills had vanished
under the breath of winds from Africa. Grass-plots in the gardens were
covered with violets. The Forums and the Campus Martius were filled with
people warmed by a sun of growing heat. Along the Appian Way, the usual
place for drives outside the city, a movement of richly ornamented
chariots had begun. Excursions were made to the Alban Hills. Youthful
women, under pretext of worshipping Juno in Lanuvium, or Diana in
Aricia, left home to seek adventures, society, meetings, and pleasure
beyond the city. Here Vin