“My name is Melissa; I am the sister of Alexander the painter.  I know it is overbold to venture into your presence just now, when you have so much else to think of; but I saw no other way of saving my brother’s life, which is in peril.”

At this Berenike seemed surprised.  She turned to her companion, who was her sister’s husband, and the first Egyptian who had been admitted to the Roman Senate, and said, in a tone of gentle reproach: 

“Did not I say so, Coeranus?  Nothing but the most urgent need would have brought Alexander’s sister to speak with me at such an hour.”

And the senator, whose black eyes had rested with pleasure on Melissa’s rare beauty, promptly replied, “And if she had come for the veriest trifle she would be no less welcome to me.”

“Let me hear no more of such speeches,” Berenike exclaimed with some annoyance.—­“Now, my child, be quick.  What about your brother?”

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.”