temptation should prevail against the fidelity due to his
beloved.

Not far from the Thermae of Constantine, and over against that
long-ruined sanctuary of ancient Rome, the Temple of Quirinus, he drew
rein at a great house with a semicircular portico of Carystian columns,
before which stood a bronze bull, the ornament of a fountain now
waterless; on either side of the doorway was a Molossian hound in
marble. A carriage and a litter waiting here showed that Heliodora had
visitors. This caused Basil to hesitate for a moment but he decided to
enter none the less. At his knock he was at once admitted, and a slave
was sent to look after his horse.

Few houses in Rome contained so many fine works of ancient sculpture as
this, for its master had been distinguished by his love of such things
in a time when few cared for them. Some he had purchased at a great
price; more than one masterpiece he had saved from oblivion amid ruins,
or from the common fate of destruction in a lime-kiln. Well for him had
he been content to pass his latter years with the cold creations of the
sculptor; but he turned his eyes upon consummate beauty in flesh and
blood, and this, the last of his purchases, proved the costliest of all.

The atrium was richly adorned. A colossal bust of Berenice faced the
great head of an Amazon, whilst numerous statues, busts, and vases
stood between the pillars; mosaics on the floor represented hunting
scenes, the excellence of the work no less than its worn condition
showing it to be of a time long gone by. Following his conductor, Basil
passed along a corridor, and into a peristyle with a double colonnade.
In the midst of a little garden, planted with flowering shrubs, rose
the statue which its late owner had most prized, an admirable copy of
the Aphrodite of Cnidos; it stood upon a pedestal of black basalt and
was protected by a light canopy with slender columns in all but
transparent alabaster. Round about it were marble seats, and here,
shielded from the sun by little silken awnings, sat Heliodora and her
guests. At once Basil became aware of the young Vivian, whose boyish
form (he was but some eighteen years old) lounged among cushions on the
seat nearest to Heliodora, his eyes fixed upon her beauty in a
languishing gaze, which, as soon as he beheld the new comer, flashed
into fierceness. The others were two women, young and comely, whose
extravagant costume and the attitudes in which they reclined proved
them