“Now go home happy, my child.  That stone had hit your lover’s brain-roof a hard blow; the pressure of the broken beam—­I mean a piece of bone—­had robbed him of his consciousness of what a sweet bride the gods have bestowed on him.  But the knife has done its work; the beam is in its place again; the splinters which were not needed have been taken out; the roof is mended, and the pressure removed.  Your friend has recovered consciousness, and I will wager that at this moment he is thinking of you and wishes you were with him.  But for the present you had better defer the meeting.  For forty-eight hours he must remain in that little room, for any movement would only delay his recovery.”

“Then I shall stay here to nurse him,” cried Melissa, eagerly.  But Galenus replied, decisively: 

“That must not be if he is to get well.  The presence of a woman for whom the sufferer’s heart is on fire is as certain to aggravate the fever as the scent of incense.  Besides, child, this is no place for such as you.”

Her head drooped sadly, but he nodded to her cheeringly as he added: 

“Ptolemaeus, who is worthy of your entire confidence, speaks of you as a girl of much sense, and you will surely not do anything to spoil my work, which was not easy.  However, I must say farewell; other sick require my care.”

He held out his hand, but, seeing her eyes fixed on his and glittering through tears, he asked her name and family.  It seemed to him of good augury for the long hours before him which he must devote to Caesar, that he should, so early in the day, have met so pure and fair a flower of girlhood.

When she had told him her own name and her father’s, and also mentioned her brothers, Philip the philosopher, and Alexander the painter, who was already one of the chief masters of his art here, Galenus answered heartily: 

“All honor to his genius, then, for he is the one-eyed king in the land of the blind.  Like the old gods, who can scarce make themselves heard for the new, the Muses too have been silenced.  The many really beautiful things to be seen here are not new; and the new, alas! are not beautiful.  But your brother’s work,” he added, kindly, “may be the exception.”

“You should only see his portraits!” cried Melissa.

“Yours, perhaps, among them?” said the old man, with interest.  “That is a reminder I would gladly take back to Rome with me.”

Alexander had indeed painted his sister not long before, and how glad she was to be able to offer the picture to the reverend man to whom she owed so much!  So she promised with a blush to send it him as soon as she should be at home again.