CHAPTER XVII.

But the young sculptor had not been at the gatehouse when Arsinoe went by.  He had thought of her often enough since meeting her again by the bust of her mother; but on this particular afternoon his time and thoughts were fully claimed by another fair damsel.  Balbilla had arrived at Lochias about noon, accompanied, as was fitting, by the worthy Claudia, the not wealthy widow of a senator, who for many years had filled the place of lady-in-attendance and protecting companion to the rich fatherless and motherless girl.  At Rome, she conducted Balbilla’s household affairs with as much sense and skill as satisfaction in the task.  Still she was not perfectly content with her lot, for her ward’s love of travelling, often compelled her to leave the metropolis, and in her estimation, there was no place but Rome where life was worth living.  A visit to Baiae for bathing, or in the winter months a flight to the Ligurian coast, to escape the cold of January and February—­these she could endure; for she was certain there to find, if not Rome, at any rate Romans; but Balbilla’s wish to venture in a tossing ship, to visit the torrid shores of Africa, which she pictured to herself as a burning oven, she had opposed to the utmost.  At last, however, she was obliged to put a good face on the matter, for the Empress herself expressed so decidedly her wish to take Balbilla with her to the Nile, that any resistance would have been unduteous.  Still; in her secret heart, she could not but confess to herself that her high-spirited and wilful foster-child—­for so she loved to call Balbilla—­would undoubtedly have carried out her purpose without the Empress’ intervention.

Balbilla had come to the palace, as the reader knows, to sit for her bust.

When Selene was passing by the screen which concealed her playfellow and his work from her gaze, the worthy matron had fallen gently asleep on a couch, and the sculptor was exerting all his zeal to convince the noble damsel that the size to which her hair was dressed was an exaggeration, and that the super-incumbence of such a mass must disfigure the effect of the delicate features of her face.  He implored her to remember in how simple a style the great Athenian masters, at the best period of the plastic arts, had taught their beautiful models to dress their hair, and requested her to do her own hair in that manner next day, and to come to him before she allowed her maid to put a single lock through the curling-tongs; for to-day, as he said, the pretty little ringlets would fly back into shape, like the spring of a fibula when the pin was bent back.  Balbilla contradicted him with gay vivacity, protested against his desire to play the part of lady’s maid, and defended her style of hair-dressing on the score of fashion.

“But the fashion is ugly, monstrous, a pain to one’s eyes!” cried Pollux.  “Some vain Roman lady must have invented it, not to make herself beautiful, but to be conspicuous.”