“Unluckily, I am not in the habit of yielding to a girl’s whims.”

“I have no whims,” she eagerly declared.  “But you will keep your word now, and allow me to withdraw?  I implore you to let me go!”

With a deep sigh and an amount of self-control of which he would yesterday have thought himself incapable, he let go her hand, and she with a shudder thought that she had found the answer to the question he had asked her.  His eyes, not his words, had betrayed it; for a woman can see in a suitor’s look what color his wishes take, while a woman’s eyes only tell her lover whether or no she reciprocates his feelings.

“I am going,” she said, but he remarked the deadly paleness which overspread her features, and her colorless cheeks encouraged him in the belief that, after a sleepless night and the agitations of the last few hours, it was only physical exhaustion which made Melissa so suddenly anxious to escape from him.  So, saying kindly: 

“’Till to-morrow, then,” he dismissed her.

But when she had almost left the room, he added:  “One thing more!  To-morrow we will try our zitherns together.  After my bath is the time I like best for such pleasant things; Adventus will fetch you.  I am curious to hear you play and sing.  Of all sounds, that of the human voice is the sweetest.  Even the shouting of my legions is pleasing to the ear and heart.  Do you not think so, and does not the acclamation of so many thousands stir your soul?”

“Certainly,” she replied hastily; and she longed to reproach him for the injustice he was doing the populace of Alexandria to benefit his warriors, but she felt that the time was ill chosen, and everything gave way to her longing to be gone out of the dreadful man’s sight.

In the next room she met Philostratus, and begged him to conduct her to the lady Euryale; for all the anterooms were now thronged, and she had lost the calm confidence in which she had come thither.

CHAPTER XXII.

As Melissa made her way with the philosopher through the crowd, Philostratus said to her:  “It is for your sake, child, that these hundreds have had so long to wait to-day, and many hopes will be disappointed.  To satisfy all is a giant’s task.  But Caracalla must do it, well or ill.”

“Then he will forget me!” replied Melissa, with a sigh of relief.

“Hardly,” answered the philosopher.  He was sorry for the terrified girl, and in his wish to lighten her woes as far as he could, he said, gravely:  “You called him terrible, and he can be more terrible than any man living.  But he has been kind to you so far, and, if you take my advice, you will always seem to expect nothing from him that is not good and noble.”

“Then I must be a hypocrite,” replied Melissa.  “Only to-day he has murdered the noble Titianus.”

“That is an affair of state which does not concern you,” replied Philostratus.  “Read my description of Achilles.  I represent him among other heroes such as Caracalla might be.  Try, on your part, to see him in that light.  I know that it is sometimes a pleasure to him to justify the good opinion of others.  Encourage your imagination to think the best of him.  I shall tell him that you regard him as magnanimous and noble.”