But for Arsinoe’s sake he could not turn his back on his native place.  He loved her with all the passion of his artist’s soul, and his youthful courage would certainly not have been so quickly and utterly crushed if he could have deluded himself as to the fact that his hopes of possessing her had been driven into the remote background by the events of the preceding evening.  How could he dare to drag her into his uncertain and compromised position?  And what reception could he hope for from her father if he should now attempt to demand her for his wife.  As these thoughts overpowered his mind he suddenly felt as if his eyes were smarting with sand that had blown into them, and he could not help springing out of bed; he paced his little room with long steps, and he held his forehead pressed against the wall.

The dawn of a new day appeared as a welcome comfort, and by the time he had eaten the morning porridge which his mother set before him—­and her eyes were red with weeping—­the idea struck him that he would go to Pontius, the architect.  That was the lifeboat he espied.

Doris shared her son’s breakfast but, contrary to her usual custom, she spoke very little, only she frequently passed her hand over her son’s curly hair.  Euphorion strode up and down the room, rummaging his brain for ideas for an ode in which he might address the Emperor and implore forgiveness for his son.  Soon after breakfast Pollux went up to the rotunda where the Queens’ busts stood, hoping to see Arsinoe again, and a loud snatch of song soon brought her out on to the balcony.  They exchanged greetings, and Pollux signed to her to come down to him.  She would have obeyed him more than gladly, but her father had also heard the sculptor’s voice and drove her back into the room.  Still the mere sight of his beloved fair one had done the artist good.  Hardly had he got back to his father’s little house when Antinous came sauntering in—­he represented in the artist’s mind the hospitable shores on which he might gaze.  Hope revived his soul, and Hope is the sun before which despair flies as the shades of night flee at the rising of the day-star.

His artistic faculties were once more roused into play, and found a field for their freest exercise when Antinous told him that he was at his disposal till mid-day, since his master—­or rather Caesar as he was now permitted to name him—­was engaged in business.  The prefect Titianus had come to him with a whole heap of papers, to work with him and his private secretary.  Pollux at once led the favorite into a side room of the little house, with a northern aspect; here on a table lay the wax and the smaller implements which belonged to himself and which he had brought home last evening.  His heart ached, and his nerves were in a painful state of tension as he began his work.  All sorts of anxious thoughts disturbed his spirit, and yet he knew that if he put his whole soul into it he could do something good.  Now, if ever, he must put forth his best powers, and he dreaded failure as an utter catastrophe, for on the face of the whole earth there was no second model to compare with this that stood before him.