Melissa briefly and truthfully reported Alexander’s heedless crime and the results to her father and Philip.  She ended by beseeching the noble lady with fervent pathos to intercede for her father and brothers.

Meanwhile the senator’s keen face had darkened, and the lady Berenike’s large eyes, too, were downcast.  She evidently found it hard to come to a decision; and for the moment she was relieved of the necessity, for runners came hurrying up, and the senator hastily desired Melissa to stand aside.

He whispered to his sister-in-law: 

“It will never do to spoil Caesar’s good-humor under your roof for the sake of such people,” and Berenike had only time to reply, “I am not afraid of him,” when the messenger explained to her that Caesar himself was prevented from coming, but that his representatives, charged with his apologies, were close at hand.

On this Coeranus exclaimed, with a sour smile:  “Admit that I am a true prophet!  You have to put up with the same treatment that we senators have often suffered under.”

But the matron scarcely heard him.  She cast her eyes up to heaven with sincere thanksgiving as she murmured with a sigh of relief, “For this mercy the gods be praised!”

She unclasped her hands from her heaving bosom, and said to the steward who had followed the messengers: 

“Caesar will not be present.  Inform your lord, but so that no one else may hear.  He must come here and receive the imperial representatives with me.  Then have my couch quietly removed and the banquet served at once.  O Coeranus, you can not imagine the misery I am thus spared!”

“Berenike!” said the senator, in a warning voice, and he laid his finger on his lips.  Then turning to the young supplicant, he said to her in a tone of regret:  “So your walk is for nothing, fair maid.  If you are as sensible as you are pretty, you will understand that it is too much to ask any one to stand between the lion and the prey which has roused his ire.”

The lady, however, did not heed the caution which her brother-in-law intended to convey.  As Melissa’s imploring eyes met her own, she said, with clear decision: 

“Wait here.  We shall see who it is that Caesar sends.  I know better than my lord here what it is to see those dear to us in peril.  How old are you, child?”

“Eighteen,” replied Melissa.

“Eighteen?” repeated Berenike, as if the word were a pain to her, for her daughter had been just of that age.  Then she said, louder and with encouraging kindness: 

“All that lies in my power shall be done for you and yours.—­And you, Coeranus, must help me.”

“If I can,” he replied, “with all the zeal of my reverence for you and my admiration for beauty.  But here come the envoys.  The elder, I see, is our learned Philostratus, whose works are known to you; the younger is Theocritus, the favorite of fortune of whom I was telling you.  If the charm of that face might but conquer the omnipotent youth—­”