Melissa laughed and said he should be no worse off if only the first wish of her heart were fulfilled, and she were wife to Diodoros; and Argutis declared he would be amply content if only she allowed him to remain with her.

But she only half listened and answered absently, for she breathed faster as she pictured to herself how she would show Caesar, on whom she had already proved her power, that she had ceased to tremble before him.

Thus they came to the house of Seleukus.

A large force had taken up their quarters there.  In the pillared hall beyond the vestibule bearded soldiers were sitting on benches or squatting in groups on the ground, drinking noisily and singing, or laughing and squabbling as they threw the dice on the costly mosaic pavement.  A riotous party were toping and reveling in the beautiful garden of the impluvium round a fire which they had lighted on the velvet turf.  A dozen or so of officers had stretched themselves on cushions under one of the colonnades, and, without attempting to check the wild behavior of their men, were watching the dancing of some Egyptian girls who had been brought into the house of their involuntary host.  Although Melissa was closely veiled and accompanied by a servant, she did not escape rude words and insolent glances.  Indeed, an audacious young praetorian had put out his hand to pull away her veil, but an older officer stopped him.

The lady Berenike’s rooms had so far not been intruded on; for Macrinus, the praetorian prefect, who knew Berenike through her brother-in-law the senator Coeranus, had given orders that the women’s apartments were to be exempt from the encroachments of the quartermaster of the body-guard.  Breathing rapidly and with a heightened color, Melissa at last entered the room of Seleukus’s wife.

The matron’s voice was full of bitterness as she greeted her young visitor with the exclamation “You look as if you had fled to escape persecution!  And in my house, too!  Or”—­and her large eyes flashed brightly—­“or is the blood-hound on the track of his prey?  My boat is quite ready—­” When Melissa denied this, and related what had happened, Berenike exclaimed:  “But you know that the panther lies still and gathers himself up before he springs; or, if you do not, you may see it to-morrow at the Circus.  There is to be a performance in Caesar’s honor, the like of which not even Nero ever saw.  My husband bears the chief part cf the cost, and can think of nothing else.  He has even forgotten his only child, and all to please the man who insults us, robs and humiliates us!  Now that men kiss the hands which maltreat them, it is the part of women to defy them.  You must fly, child!  The harbor is now closed, but it will be open again to-morrow morning, and, if your folks are set free in the course of the day, then away with you at once!  Or do you really hope for any good from the tyrant who has made this house what you now see it?”