“An architect can make no use of anything that is unsteady or that has no firm foundation.”

“That is a hard saying, Pontius.  It is true that during the last few weeks I have behaved like a fool.”

“I only wish that every tottering structure could recover its balance as quickly and as certainly as you!  Antinous was a demigod for beauty, and a good faithful fellow besides.”

“Do not speak of him any more,” exclaimed Balbilla shuddering.  “He looked dreadful.  Can you forgive me for my conduct?”

“I never was angry with you.”

“But I lost your esteem.”

“No, Balbilla.  Beauty, which is dear to us all, and which the Muse has kissed, attracted your easily moved poet’s soul and it fluttered off at random.  Let it fly!  My friend’s true womanly nature was never carried away by it.  She stands on a rock, that I am sure of.”

“How good and kind in you to say so—­too good, too kind! for I am a feeble creature, turned by every breeze that blows, a vain little fool who does not know one hour what she may do the next, a spoilt child that likes best to do the thing it ought to leave undone, a weak girl who finds a pleasure in doing battle with men.  For all in all—­”

“For all in all a darling of the gods who to-day can climb the rocks with a firm step and to-morrow lies dreaming in the sunshine among flowers—­for all in all a nature that has no equal and which lacks nothing, nothing whatever that constitutes a true woman excepting—­”

“I know what I lack,” cried Balbilla.  “A strong man on whom I can depend, whose warnings I can respect.  You, you are that man; you and none other, for as soon as I feel you by my side I find it difficult to do what I know to be wrong.  Here I am, Pontius!  Will you have me with all my moods, with all my faults and weaknesses?”

“Balbilla!” cried the architect, beside himself with heartfelt agitation and surprise, and he pressed her hand long and fervently to-his lips.

“You will?  You will take me?  You will never leave me, you will warn, support me and protect me?”

“Till my last day, till death, as my child, as the apple of my eye, as—­dare I say it and believe it?—­as my love, my second self, my wife.”

“Oh!  Pontius, Pontius,” she exclaimed, grasping his broad, right hand in both her own.  “This hour restores to the orphaned Balbilla, father and mother and gives her besides the husband that she loves.”

“Mine, mine!” cried the architect.  “Immortal gods!  During half a lifetime I have never found time, in the midst of labor and fatigue, to indulge in the joys of love and now you give me with interest and compound interest the treasure you have so long withheld.”

“How can you, a reasonable man, so over-estimate the value of your possession?  But you shall find some good in it.  Life can no longer be conceived of as worth having without the possessor.”