Taking a short leave of her father, who was looking very sulky because nobody seemed to care for his opinion, and of Alexander, who lovingly promised her his help, she took the philosopher’s hand and walked with him through one crowded apartment after another.  They often had difficulty in pressing through the throng of people who were waiting for an audience, and in the antechamber, where the Aurelians had had to pay so bitterly for their insolence yesterday, they were detained by the blonde and red-Haired giants of the Uermanian body-guard, whose leader, Sabinus, a Thracian of exceptional height and strength, was acquainted with the philosopher.

Caracalla had given orders that no one was to be admitted till the negotiations with the Parthian ambassadors, which had begun an hour ago, were brought to a conclusion.  Philostratus well knew that the emperor would interrupt the most important business if Melissa were announced, but there was much that he would have the maiden lay to heart before he led her to the monarch; while she wished for nothing so earnestly as that the door which separated her from her terrible wooer might remain closed to the end of time.  When the chamberlain Adventus looked out from the imperial apartments, she begged him to give her a little time before announcing her.

The old man blinked consent with his dim eyes, but the philosopher took care that Melissa should not be left to herself and the terrors of her heart.  He employed all the eloquence at his command to make her comprehend what it meant to be an empress and the consort of the ruler of the world.  In flaming colors he painted to her the good she might do in such a position, and the tears she might wipe away.  Then he reminded her of the healing and soothing influence she had over Caracalla, and that this influence came doubtless from the gods, since it passed the bounds of nature and acted so beneficently.  No one might reject such a gift from the immortals merely to gratify an ordinary passion.  The youth whose love she must give up would be able to comfort himself with the thought that many others had had much worse to bear, and he would find no difficulty in getting a substitute, though not so beautiful a one.  On the other hand, she was the only one among millions whose heart, obedient to a heaven-sent impulse, had turned in pity toward Caracalla.  If she fled, she would deprive the emperor of the only being on whose love he felt he had some claim.  If she listened to the wooing of her noble lover, she would be able to tame this ungovernable being and soothe his fury, and would gain in return for a sacrifice such as many had made before her, the blissful consciousness of having rendered an inestimable service to the whole world.  For by her means and her love, the imperial tyrant would be transformed into a beneficent ruler.  The blessing of the thousands whom she could protect and save would make the hardest task sweet and endurable.