His slaves, natives of Britain, who were dressed as garden-gods, were charged with the commission to proceed to dame Hannah’s under the guidance of the donkey-driver to deliver the nosegay to Selene from ’the friend at Lochias,’ and then to wait for him outside the house of Titianus, the prefect; for thither, as he had ascertained from his swift-footed messenger, had Keraunus and his daughter been carried.

Verus needed a longer time than the boy, to make his way through the crowd.  At the door of the prefect’s residence he laid aside his mask, and in an anteroom where the steward was sitting on a couch waiting for his daughter, he arranged his hair and the folds of his toga, and was then conducted to the lady Julia with whom he hoped, once more, to see the charming Arsinoe.

But in the reception-room, instead of Arsinoe he found his own wife and the poetess Balbilla and her companion.  He greeted the ladies gaily, amiably and gracefully, as usual, and then, as he looked enquiringly round the large room without concealing his disappointment, Balbilla came up to him and asked him in a low voice: 

“Can you be honest, Verus?”

“When circumstances allow it, yes.”

“And will they allow it here?”

“I should suppose so.”

“Then answer me truly.  Did you come here for Julia’s sake, or did you come—­”

“Well?”

“Or did you expect to find the fair Roxana with the prefect’s wife?”

“Roxana?” asked Verus, with a cunning smile.  “Roxana!  Why she was the wife of Alexander the Great, and is long since dead, but I care only for the living, and when I left the merry tumult in the streets it was simply and solely—­”

“You excite my curiosity.”

“Because my prophetic heart promised me, fairest Balbilla, that I should find you here.”

“And that you call honest!” cried the poetess, hitting the praetor a blow with the stick of the ostrich-feather fan she held in her hand.  “Only listen, Lucilla, your husband declares he came here for my sake.”  The praetor looked reproachfully at the speaker, but she whispered: 

“Due punishment for a dishonest man.”  Then, raising her voice, she said: 

“Do you know, Lucilla, that if I remain unmarried, your husband is not wholly innocent in the matter.”

“Alas! yes, I was born too late for you,” interrupted Verus, who knew very well what the poetess was about to say.

“Nay—­no misunderstanding!” cried Balbilla.  “For how can a woman venture upon wedlock when she cannot but fear the possibility of getting such a husband as Verus.”

“And what man,” retorted the praetor, “would ever be so bold as to court Balbilla, could he hear how cruelly she judges an innocent admirer of beauty?”

“A husband ought not to admire beauty—­only the one beauty who is his wife.”

“Ah Vestal maiden,” laughed Verus.  “I am meanwhile punishing you by withholding from you a great secret which interests us all.  No, no, I am not going to tell—­but I beg you my lady wife to take her to task, and teach her to exercise some indulgence so that her future husband may not have too hard a time of it.”