“And I will help it in the fight,” she said happily, as she put her hand through his arm again, and they hurried back to the old palace, dancing rather than walking.

The late December sun was already giving warning of his approaching rising by cold yellowish-grey streaks in the sky as Pollux and his companion entered the gate, which had long since been opened for the workmen.  In the hall of the Muses they took a first farewell, in the passage leading to the steward’s room, a second—­sad and yet most happy; but this was but a short one for the gleam of a lamp made them start apart, and Arsinoe instantly fled.

The disturber was Antinous who was waiting here for the Emperor who was still gazing at the stars from the watch-tower Pontius had erected for him.  As she vanished he turned to Pollux and said gaily: 

“I need your forgiveness for I have disturbed you in an interview with your sweetheart.”

“She will be my wife,” said the sculptor proudly.

“So much the better!” replied the favorite, and he drew a deep breath, as though the artist’s words had relieved his mind of a burden.

“Ah! so much the better.  Can you tell me where to find the fair Arsinoe’s sister?”

“To be sure,” replied the artist, and he felt pleased that the young Bithynian should cling to his arm.  Within the next hour, Pollux, from whose lips there flowed a stream of eager and enthusiastic words, like water from a spring, had completely won the heart of the Emperor’s favorite.

The girl found both her father and Helios, who no longer looked like a sick patient—­fast asleep.  The old slave-woman came in a few minutes after her, and when at last, after unbinding her hair, Arsinoe threw herself on her bed she fell asleep instantly, and in her dreams found herself once more by the side of her Pollux, while they both were flying to the sound of drums, flutes, and cymbals high above the dusty ways of earth, like leaves swept on by the wind.

CHAPTER XXI.

The steward awoke soon after sunrise.  He had slept no less soundly, it is true, in his arm-chair than in his bed, but he did not feel refreshed, and his limbs ached.

In the living-room everything was in the same disorder as on the previous evening, and this annoyed him, for he was accustomed to find his room in order when he entered it in the morning.  On the table, surrounded by flies, stood the remains of the children’s supper, and among the bread crusts and plates lay his own ornaments and his daughter’s!  Wherever he turned he saw articles of dress and other things out of their place.  The old slave-woman came in yawning, her woolly grey hair hung in disorder about her face, and her eyes seemed fixed, her feet carried her unsteadily here and there.

“You are drunk,” cried Keraunus; nor was he mistaken, for when the old woman had waked up, sitting by the house of Pudeus, and had learned from the gate keeper that Arsinoe had quitted the garden, she had gone into a tavern with other slave-women.  When her master seized her arm and shook her, she exclaimed with a stupid grin on her wet lips: