“Long since—­there your sister is moving and has opened her eyes—­now she has shut them again.”

“Go back into the garden and wait till I come,” Arsinoe commanded him decidedly.  “I will only see how Selene is going on; I will not stop long for my father wishes me to return soon, and no one can nurse her better than Hannah!”

The girl drew her hand out of her lover’s and knocked at the door of the little house; it was opened and the widow herself led Arsinoe to the bedside of her sister.  Pollux at first sat a while on a bench in the garden, but soon sprang up and paced with long steps the path he had previously trodden with Arsinoe.  A stone table across the path, brought him to a stand-still, and he took a fancy for leaping it.  The third time he came up to it he sprang over it with a long jump.  But no sooner had he done the frolicsome deed than he paused, shook his head at himself and muttered to himself:  “Like a boy!”—­He felt indeed like a happy child.  But as he waited he became calmer and graver.  He acknowledged to himself, with sincere thankfulness, that he had now found the ideal woman, of whom he had dreamed in his hours of best inspiration, and that she was his, wholly and alone.  And after all, what was he?  A poor rascal who had many mouths to fill, and was no more than two fingers of his master’s hand.  This must be altered.  He would not reduce his sister’s comforts in any way but he must break with Papias, and stand henceforth on his own feet.  His courage mounted fast, and when at last, Arsinoe returned from her sister, he had resolved that he must first finish Balbilla’s bust with all diligence in his own workshop, and that then he would model his beloved; these two female heads he could not fail in.  Caesar must see them, they must be exhibited, and already in his mind’s eye, he saw himself refusing order after order, and accepting only the most splendid where all were good.

Arsinoe went home comforted.  Selene’s sufferings were certainly less than she had pictured them; she did not wish to be nursed by any one besides dame Hannah.  She might perhaps have a little fever, but any one who was capable of discussing every little question of house-keeping, and all that related to the children could not be—­as Arsinoe thought while she walked back through the garden, leaning on the artist’s arm—­ really and properly ill.

“It must revive and delight her to have Roxana for a sister!” cried Pollux; but his pretty companion shook her head and said:  “She is always so odd; what most delights me is averse to her.”

“Well Selene is of course the moon, and you are the sun.”

“And what are you?” asked Arsinoe.

“I am tall Pollux, and to-night I feel as if I might some day be great Pollux.”

“If you succeed I shall grow with you.”

“That will be your right, since it is only through you that I can ever succeed in that which I propose to do.