During this conversation Verus had entered the room; he was following the Emperor everywhere to-day for he hoped to hear him say a word as to his observation of the heavens, and yet he did not dare to ask him what he had discovered from them.

When he saw that Hadrian was occupied he made a chamberlain conduct him to Antinous.  The favorite turned pale as he saw the praetor, still he retained enough presence of mind to wish him all happiness on his birthday.  It did not escape Verus that his presence had startled the lad; he therefore plied him at first with indifferent questions, introduced pleasing anecdotes into his conversation and then, when he had gained his purpose, he added carelessly: 

“I must thank you in the name of the state and of every friend of Caesar’s.  You carried out your undertaking well to the end, though by somewhat overpowering means.”

“I entreat you say no more,” interrupted Antinous eagerly, and looking anxiously at the door of the next room.

“Oh!  I would have sacrificed all Alexandria to preserve Caesar’s mind from gloom and care.  Besides we have both paid dearly for our good intentions and for those wretched sheds.”

“Pray talk of something else.”

“You sit there with your hands bound up and your hair singed, and I feel very unwell.”

“Hadrian said you had helped valiantly in the rescue.”

“I was sorry for the poor rats whose gathered store of provisions the flames were so rapidly devouring, and all hot as I was from my supper, I flung myself in among the men who were extinguishing the fire.  My first reward was a bath of cold, icy-cold sea-water, which was poured over my head out of a full skin.  All doctrines of ethics are in disgrace with me, and I have long considered all the dramatic poets, in whose pieces virtue is rewarded and crime punished, as a pack of fools; for my pleasantest hours are all due to my worst deeds; and sheer annoyance and misery, to my best.  No hyena can laugh more hoarsely that I now speak; some portion of me inside here, seems to have been turned into a hedgehog whose spines prick and hurt me, and all this because I allowed myself to be led away into doing things which the moralists laud as virtuous.”

“You cough, and you do not look well.  He down awhile.”

“On my birthday?  No, my young friend.  And now let me just ask you before I go:  Can you tell me what Hadrian read in the stars?”

“No.”

“Not even if I put my Perseus at your orders for every thing you may require of him?  The man knows Alexandria and is as dumb as a fish.”

“Not even then, for what I do not know I cannot tell.  We are both of us ill, and I tell you once more you will be wise to take care of yourself.”  Verus left the room, and Antinous watched him go with much relief.

The praetor’s visit had filled him with disquietude, and had added to the dislike he felt for him.  He knew that he had been used to base ends by Verus, for Hadrian had told him so much as that he had gone up to the observatory not to question the stars for himself but to cast the praetor’s horoscope, and that he had informed Verus of his intention.