brought words to his lips which he now wished that he had never spoken.  It is true that the steward’s false pride had roused his indignation, and who can listen calmly to any comment on a stain on his birth?  But the appeal of this miserable father’s daughter had gone to his heart.  He pitied the fatuous simpleton whom, with a turn of his hand, he could reduce to beggary, and who had evidently been far more deeply hurt by his words than Pontius had been by what he had overheard, and so he followed the kindly impulse of a noble nature to spare the unfortunate.

He rapped loudly with his knuckles on the inside of the door-post of the ante-room, coughed loudly, and then said, bowing deeply to the steward on the threshold of the sitting-room: 

“Noble Keraunus—­I have come, as beseems me, to pay you my respects.  Excuse the lateness of the hour, but you can scarcely imagine how busy I have been since we parted.”

Keraunus had at first started at the late visitor, then he stared at him in consternation.  He now went towards him, stretched out both hands as if suddenly relieved of a nightmare, and a bright expression of such warm and sincere satisfaction overspread his countenance that Pontius wondered how he could have failed to observe what a well-cut face this fat original had.

“Take a seat at our humble table,” said Keraunus.  “Go Selene and call the slaves.  Perhaps there is yet a pheasant in the house, a roast fowl or something of the kind—­but the hour, it is true, is late.”

“I am deeply obliged to you,” replied the architect, smiling.  “My supper is waiting for me in the hall of the Muses, and I must return to my work-people.  I should be grateful to you if you would accompany me.  We must consult together as to the lighting of the rooms, and such matters are best discussed over a succulent roast and a flask of wine.”

“I am quite at your service,” said Keraunus with a bow.

“I will go on ahead,” said the architect, “but first will you have the goodness to give all that you have in the way of cressets, lights and lamps to the slaves, who, in a few minutes, shall await your orders at your door.”

When Pontius had departed, Selene exclaimed with a deep sigh

“Oh! what a fright I have had!  I will go now and find the lamps.  How terribly it might have ended.”

“It is well that he should have come,” murmured Keraunus.  “Considering his birth and origin, the architect is certainly a well-bred man.”

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     Facts are differently reflected in different minds
     Have not yet learned not to be astonished
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     Years are the foe of beauty

THE EMPEROR

By Georg Ebers

Volume 2.

CHAPTER V.