The young sculptor was strongly attracted by this commanding personage.  It had not escaped him that the gray-bearded stranger greatly resembled the Emperor; but Pontius had prepared him for the likeness, and in fact there was much in the eyes and mouth of the Roman architect that he had never traced in any portrait of Hadrian ‘Imperator.’  And as they stood before his scarcely-finished statue his respect increased for the new visitor to Lochias; for, with earnest frankness, he pointed out to him certain faults, and while praising the merits of the rapidly-executed figure he explained in a few brief and pithy phrases his own conception of the ideal Urania.  Then shortly but clearly, he stated his views as to how the plastic artist must deal with the problems of his art.

The young man’s heart beat faster, and more than once he turned hot and cold by turns as he heard things uttered by the bearded lips of this imposing man, in a rich voice and in lucid phrases, which he had often divined or vaguely felt, but for which, while learning, observing, and working, he had never sought expression in words.  And how kindly the great master took up his timid observations, how convincingly he answered them.  Such a man as this he had never met, never had he bowed with such full consent before the superiority and sovereign power of another mind.

The second hour after midnight had begun, when Hadrian, standing before the rough-cast clay bust, asked Pollux: 

“What is this to be?”

“A portrait of a girl.”

“Probably of the complaisant model who ventures into Lochias at night?”

“No; a lady of rank will sit to me.”

“An Alexandrian?”

“Oh, no.  A beauty in the train of the Empress.”

“What is her name?  I know all the Roman ladies.”

“Balbilla.”

“Balbilla?  There are many of that name.  What is she like, the lady you mean?” asked Hadrian, with a cunning glance of amusement.

“That is easier to ask than to answer,” replied the artist, who, seeing his gray-bearded companion smile, recovered his gay vivacity, “But stay—­ you have seen a peacock spread its tail—­now only imagine that every eye in the train of Hera’s bird was a graceful round curl, and that in the middle of the circle there was a charming, intelligent girl’s face, with a merry little nose, and a rather too high forehead, and you will have the portrait of the young damsel who has graciously permitted me to model from her person.”

Hadrian laughed heartily, threw off his cloak, and exclaimed: 

“Stand aside—­I know your maiden—­and if I mean a different one you shall tell me.”

While he was still speaking he had plunged his powerful hands into the yielding clay, and kneading and pinching like a practised modeller, wiping off and pressing on, he formed a woman’s face with a towering structure of curls, which resembled Balbilla, but which reproduced every conspicuous peculiarity with such whimsical exaggeration that Pollux could not contain his delight.  When at last Hadrian stepped back from the happy caricature and called upon him to say whether that were not indeed the Roman lady, Pollux exclaimed: