Then he invited Melissa to make a return for his song by singing Sappho’s Ode to Aphrodite.  Pale, and as if obeying some strange compulsion, she seated herself at the instrument, and the prelude sounded clear and tuneful from her skillful fingers.

“Beautiful!  Worthy of Mesomedes!” cried Caracalla, but Melissa could not sing, for at the first note her voice was broken by stormy sobs.

“The power of the goddess whom she meant to extol!” said Philostratus, pointing to her; and the tearful, beseeching look with which she met the emperor’s gaze while she begged him in low tones—­“Not now!  I can not do it to-day!”—­confirmed Caracalla in his opinion that the passion he had awakened in the maiden was in no way inferior to his own-perhaps even greater.  He relieved his full heart by whispering to Melissa a passionate, “I love you,” and, desiring to show her by a favor how kindly he felt toward her, added:  “I will not let your fellow-citizens wait outside any longer—­Adventus!  The deputation from the Circus!”

The chamberlain withdrew at once, and the emperor throwing himself back on the throne, continued, with a sigh: 

“I wonder how any of these rich tradesmen would like to undertake what I have already gone through this day.  First, the bath; then, while I rested, Macrinus’s report; after that, the inspection of the sacrifices; then a review of the troops, with a gracious word to every one.  Scarcely returned, I had to receive the ambassadors from my mother, and then came the troublesome affair with Vindex.  Then the dispatches from Rome arrived, the letters to be examined, and each one to be decided on and signed.  Finally the settling of accounts with the idiologos, who, as high-priest of my choosing, has to collect the tribute from all the temples in Egypt. . . .  Next I gave audience to several people—­to your father among the rest.  He is strange, but a thorough man, and a true Macedonian of the old stock.  He repelled both greeting and presents, but he longed to be revenged—­heavily and bloodily—­on Zminis, who denounced him and brought him to the galleys. . . .  How the old fellow must have raged and stormed when he was a prisoner!  I treated the droll old gray-beard like my father.  The giant pleases me, and what skillful fingers he has on his powerful hands!  He gave me that ring with the portraits of Castor and Pollux.”

“My brothers were the models,” remarked Melissa, glad to find something to say without dissembling.

Caracalla examined the stone in the gold ring more closely, and exclaimed in admiration:  “How delicate the little heads are!  At the first glance one recognizes the hand of the happily gifted artist.  Your father’s is one of the noblest and most refined of the arts.  If I can raise a statue to a lute-player, I can do so to a gem-cutter.”

Here the deputation for the arrangement of the festival was announced, but the emperor, calling out once more, “Let them wait,” continued: