“Then follow me,” replied Pontius, leading the way.

“What do you say to this Urania?  Papias made the head of the Muse, but the figure and the drapery Pollux formed with his own hand in a few days.”

The imperial artist stood in front of the statue, with his arms crossed, and remained there for some time in silence.  Then he nodded his bearded head approvingly, and said gravely: 

“A well-considered work, and carried out with remarkable freedom; this mantle drawn over the bosom would not disgrace a Phidias.  All is broad, characteristic and true.  Did the young artist work from the model here at Lochias?”

“I have seen no model, and I believe that he evolved the whole figure out of his head,” replied Pontius.

“Impossible, perfectly impossible,” cried the Emperor, in the tone of a man who knows well what he is talking about.  “Such lines, such forms not Praxiteles himself could have invented.  He must have seen them, have formed them as he stood face to face with the living copy.  We will ask him.  What is to be made out of that newly-set-up mass of clay?”

“Possibly the bust of some princess of the house of the Lagides.  To-morrow you shall see a head of Berenice by our young friend, which seems to me to be one of the best things ever done in Alexandria.”

“And is the lad a proficient in magic?” asked Hadrian.  “It seems to me simply impossible that he should have completed this statue and a woman’s bust in these few days.”

Pontius explained to the Emperor that Pollux had mounted the head on a bust already to hand, and as he answered his questions without reserve, he revealed to him what stupendous exertions of the arts had been called into requisition to give the dilapidated palace a suitable and, in its kind, even brilliant appearance.  He frankly confessed that here he was working only for effect, and talked to Hadrian exactly as he would have discussed the same subject with any other fellow-artist.

While the Emperor and the architect were thus eagerly conversing, and the prefect was hearing from Phlegon, the secretary, all the experience of their journey, Pollux reappeared in the hall of the Muses accompanied by his father.  The singer carried before him a steaming mess, fresh cakes of bread, and the pasty which a few hours previously he had carried home to his wife from the architect’s table.  Pollux held to his breast a tolerably large two-handled jar full of Mareotic wine, which he had hastily wreathed with branches of ivy.

A few minutes later the Emperor was reclining on a mattress that had been laid for him, and was making his way valiantly through the savory mess.  He was in the happiest humor; he called Antinous and his secretary, heaped abundant portions with his own hand on their plates, which he bade them hold out to him, declaring as he did so that it was to prevent their fishing the best of the sausages out of the cabbage for themselves.  He also spoke highly of the Mareotic wine.  When they came to opening the pasty the expression of his face changed; he frowned and asked the prefect in a suspicious tone, severely and sternly: