Then she asked Melissa about her lover, her father, her mother, and at last she, unexpectedly, asked her in a whisper: 

“Your brother Alexander, the painter—­My daughter, though in death, inspired his soul with love.  Yes, Korinna was dear to him.  Her image is living in his soul.  Am I right?  Tell me the truth!”

On this Melissa confessed how deeply the painter had been impressed by the dead girl’s beauty, and that he had given her his heart and soul with a fervor of devotion of which she had never imagined him capable.  And the poor mother smiled as she heard it, and murmured, “I was sure of it.”

But then she shook her head, sadly, and said “Fool that I am!”

At last she bade Melissa good-night, and went back to her own bedroom.  There Johanna was awaiting her, and while she was plaiting her mistress’s hair the matron said, threateningly: 

“If the wretch should not spare even her”—­She was interrupted by loud shouts of mirth from the banqueting-hall, and among the laughing voices she fancied that she recognized her husband’s.  She started up with a vehement movement, and exclaimed, in angry excitement: 

“Seleukus might have prevented such an outrage!  Oh, I know that sorrowing father’s heart!  Fear, vanity, ambition, love of pleasure—­”

“But consider,” Johanna broke in, “to cross Caesar’s wish is to forfeit life!”

“Then he should have died!” replied the matron, with stern decision.

CHAPTER XVI.

Before sunrise the wind changed.  Heavy clouds bore down from the north, darkening the clear sky of Alexandria.  By the time the market was filling it was raining in torrents, and a cold breeze blew over the town from the lake.  Philostratus had only allowed himself a short time for sleep, sitting till long after midnight over his history of Apolonius of Tyana.  His aim was to prove, by the example of this man, that a character not less worthy of imitation than that of the lord of the Christians might be formed in the faith of the ancients, and nourished by doctrines produced by the many-branched tree of Greek religion and philosophy.  Julia Domna, Caracalla’s mother, had encouraged the philosopher in this task, which was to show her passionate and criminal son the dignity of moderation and virtue.  The book was also to bring home to Caesar the religion of his forefathers and his country in all its beauty and elevating power; for hitherto he had vacillated from one form to another, had not even rejected Christianity, with which his nurse had tried to inoculate him as a child, and had devoted himself to every superstition of his time in a way which had disgusted those about him.  It had been particularly interesting to the writer, with a view to the purpose of this work, to meet with a girl who practiced all the virtues the Christians most highly prized, without belonging to that sect, who were always boasting of the constraining power of their religion in conducing to pure morality.