e added--he always alluded to the Head of
the Office as He--"does not like it. He may come in at any moment and
find you gone. No; I'm afraid I can't let you go to-day. Now, if it had
been yesterday you could have gone."

"I should only be away an hour," said Rufinus, tentatively.

"He might choose just that hour to come round. If it depended only on me
you should go at once," and he laughed and slapped Rufinus on the back,
jocularly.

The clerk did not press the point further.

"You'd better get on with that index," said the high official as Rufinus
withdrew.

He told the result of his interview to his sporting friend, who started
out by himself to the Hippodrome.

Rufinus settled down to his index. But he soon fell into a mood of
abstraction. The races and the games did not interest him in the least.
It was something else which attracted him. And, as he sat musing, the
vision of the Hippodrome as he had last seen it rose clearly before him.
He saw the seaweed-coloured marble; the glistening porticoes,
adorned with the masterpieces of Greece, crowded with women in gemmed
embroideries and men in white tunics hemmed with broad purple; he saw
the Generals with their barbaric officers--Bulgarians, Persians, Arabs,
Slavs--the long line of savage-looking prisoners in their chains, and
the golden breastplates of the standard-bearers. He saw the immense silk
_velum_ floating in the azure air over that rippling sea of men, those
hundreds of thousands who swarmed on the marble steps of the Hippodrome.
He saw the Emperor in his high-pillared box, on his circular throne of
dull gold, surrounded by slaves fanning him with jewel-coloured plumes,
and fenced round with golden swords.

And opposite him, on the other side of the Stadium, the Empress, mantled
in a stiff pontifical robe, laden with heavy embroidered stuffs,
her little head framed like a portrait in a square crown of gold and
diamonds, whence chains of emeralds hung down to her breast; motionless
as an idol, impassive as a gilded mummy.

He saw the crowd of gorgeous women, grouped like Eastern flowers around
her: he saw one woman. He saw one form as fresh as a lily of the valley,
all white amidst that hard metallic splendour; frail as a dewy anemone,
slender as the moist narcissus. He saw one face like the chalice of a
rose, and amidst all those fiery jewels two large eyes as soft as dark
violets. And the sumptuous Court, the plumes, the swords, the standards,
th