"Timon?" he asked, taking her hand.

"Ah! is it you, Verus?" she answered, as though surprised. "I thought the Athenian misanthrope had quitted Hades and come to take the air in this garden."

"You thought rightly," replied the praetor. "But when Orpheus sings the trees dance, the Muse can turn dull, motionless stones into a Bacchante, and when Balbilla appears Timon is at once transformed into the happy Verus."

"The miracle does not astonish me," laughed the girl. "But is it permitted to ask what dark spirit so effectually produced the contrary result, and made a Timon of the fair Lucilla's happy husband?"

"I ought rather to beware of letting you see the monster, or our joyous muse Balbilla might easily become the sinister Hecate. But the malicious sprite is close at hand, for he is hidden in this little roll."

"A document from Caesar?"

"Oh! no, only a letter from a Jew."

"Possibly the father of some fair daughter!"

"Wrongly guessed--as wrong as possible!"

"You excite my curiosity."

"Mine has already been satisfied by this roll. Horace is wise when he says that man should never trouble himself about the future."

"An oracle!"

"Something of the kind."

"And can that darken this lovely morning to you? Did you ever see me melancholy? Yet my future is threatened by a prophecy--such a hideous prophecy."

"The fate of men is different to the destiny of women."

"Would you like to hear what was prophesied of me?"

"What a question!"

"Listen then; the saying I will repeat to you came to me from no less an oracle than the Delphic Pythia:

"'That which thou boldest most precious and dear Shall be torn from thy keeping, And from the heights of Olympus, Down shalt thou fall in the dust.'"

"Is that all?"

"Nay--two consolatory lines follow."

"And they are--?"

"Still the contemplative eye Discerns under mutable sand drifts Stable foundations of stone, Marble and natural rock."

"And you are inclined to complain of this oracle?"

"Is it so pleasant to have to wade through dust? We have enough of that intolerable nuisance here in Egypt--or am I to be delighted at the prospect of hurting my feet on hard stones?"

"And what do the interpreters say?"

"Only silly nonsense."

"You have never found the right one; but I--I see the meaning of the oracle."

"You?"

"Ay, I! The stern Balbilla will at last descend from the lofty Olympus of her high-anti-mightiness and no longer disdain that immutable foundation-rock, the adoration of her faithful Verus."

"That foundation--that rock!" laughed the girl. "I should think it as well advised to try to walk on the surface of the sea out there as on that rock!"

"Only try."

"It is not necessary; Lucilla has made the experiment for me. Your interpretation is wrong; Caesar gave me a far better one."

"What was that?"

"That I should give up writing poetry and devote myself to strict scientific studies. He advised me to try astronomy."

"Astronomy," repeated Verus, growing graver. "Farewell, fair one; I must go to Caesar!"

"We were with him yesterday at Lochias. How everything is changed there!

The pretty little gate house is gone, there is nothing more to be seen of all the cheerful bustle of builders and artists, and what were gay workshops are turned into dull, commonplace halls. The screens in the hall of the Muses had to go a week ago, and with them the young scatter-brain who set himself against my curls with so much energy that I was on the point of sacrificing them--"

"Without them you would no longer be Balbilla," cried Verus eagerly.

"The artist condemns all that is not permanently beautiful, but we are glad to see any thing that is graceful, and can find pleasure in it with the other children of the time. The sculptor may dress his goddesses after the fashion of graver days and the laws of his art, but mortal women--if he is wise--after the fashion of the day. However, I am heartily sorry for that clever, genial young fellow. He has offended Caesar and was turned out of the palace, and now he is nowhere to be found."

"Oh!" cried Balbilla, full of regret, "poor man--and such a fine fellow!

And my bust? we must seek him out. If the opportunity offers I will entreat Caesar--"

"Hadrian will hear nothing about him. Pollux has offended him deeply."

"From whom do you know that?"

"From Antinous."

"We saw him, too, only yesterday," cried Balbilla, eagerly.

"If ever a man was permitted to wear the form of a god among mortals, it is he."

"Romantic creature!"

"I know no one who could look upon him with indifference. He is a beautiful dreamer, and the trace of suffering which we observed yesterday in his countenance is probably nothing more than the outward expression of that obscure regret, felt by all that is perfect, for the joy of development and conscious ripening into an incarnation of the ideal in its own kind, of which he is an instance in himself."

The poetess spoke the last words in a rapt tone, as if the form of a god was then and there before her eyes. Verus had listened to her with a smile, but now he interrupted her, and, holding up a warning finger, he said:

"Poetess, philosopher, and sweetest maiden, beware of descending from your Olympus for the sake of this boy! When imagination and dreaminess meet half-way they make a pair which float in the clouds and never even suspect the existence of that firmer ground of which your oracle speaks."