“Because I can have anything destroyed that I choose,” laughed the spoilt girl.  “Otherwise sitting still is not much to my taste.”

“That is very true,” sighed Claudia.  “But from you I expect something strikingly good.”

“Thank you,” said Pollux, “and I will take the utmost pains to complete something that may correspond to my own expectations of what a marble portrait ought to be, that deserves to be preserved to posterity.”

“And those expectations require—?”

Pollux considered for a moment, and then he replied: 

“I have not always the right words at my command, for all that I feel as an artist.  A plastic presentiment, to satisfy its creator, must fulfil two conditions; first it must record for posterity in forms of eternal resemblance all that lay in the nature of the person it represents; secondly, it must also show to posterity what the art of the time when it was executed, was capable of.”

“That is a matter of course—­but you are forgetting your own share.”

“My own fame you mean?”

“Certainly.”

“I work for Papias and serve my art, and that is enough; meanwhile Fame does not trouble herself about me, nor do I trouble myself about her.”

“Still, you will put your name on my bust?”

“Why not?”

“You are as prudent as Cicero.”

“Cicero?”

“Perhaps you would hardly know old Tullius’ wise remark that the philosophers who wrote of the vanity of writers put their names to their books all the same.”

“Oh!  I have no contempt for laurels, but I will not run after a thing which could have no value for me, unless it came unsought, and because it was my due.”

“Well and good; but your first condition could only be fulfilled in its widest sense if you could succeed in making yourself acquainted with my thoughts and feelings, with the whole of my inmost mind.”

“I see you and talk to you,” replied Pollux.  Claudia laughed aloud, and said: 

“If instead of two sittings of two hours you were to talk to her for twice as many years you would always find something new in her.  Not a week passes in which Rome does not find in her something to talk about.  That restless brain is never quiet, but her heart is as good as gold, and always and everywhere the same.”

“And did you suppose that that was new to me?” asked Pollux.  “I can see the restless spirit of my model in her brow and in her mouth, and her nature is revealed in her eyes.”

“And in my snub-nose?” asked Balbilla.

“It bears witness to your wonderful and whimsical notions, which astonish Rome so much.”

“Perhaps you are one more that works for the hammer of the slaves,” laughed Balbilla.

“And even if it were so,” said Pollux, “I should always retain the memory of this delightful hour.”  Pontius the architect here interrupted the sculptor, begging Balbilla to excuse him for disturbing the sitting; Pollux must immediately attend to some business of importance, but in ten minutes he would return to his work.  No sooner were the two ladies alone, than Balbilla rose and looked inquisitively round and about the sculptor’s enclosed work-room; but her companion said: