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"A poetess crowning the architect with laurels!" exclaimed the Emperor. "But is not the poet's realm the infinite, and can the architect ever get beyond the finite and the limited?" "Then is the nature of the divinity a measurable unit?" asked Balbilla. "No, it is not; and yet this hall gives one the impression that the very divinity might find space in it to dwell in."
Balbilla reddened and said angrily: "Really Verus, in good earnest, I will not allow you to speak to me in that way, so now you know it once for all; I have so little liking for what is not clean that I find it quite easy to avoid it without assistance." "You are too severe," interrupted the Empress with a hideous smile.
I am to let you fulfil the office of my maid, what audacity these artists have!" "Say yes," begged the artist, in the gay and cordial tone which more than once had helped to ensnare Selene's heart. "You are beautiful, Balbilla, but if you would allow me, you might be far handsomer than you are even." And again there was a merry laugh behind the screen.
You, you are that man; you and none other, for as soon as I feel you by my side I find it difficult to do what I know to be wrong. Here I am, Pontius! Will you have me with all my moods, with all my faults and weaknesses?" "Balbilla!" cried the architect, beside himself with heartfelt agitation and surprise, and he pressed her hand long and fervently to-his lips. "You will? You will take me?
"I know it, but I also know, that there is not a man on earth who is worthier of freedom than you are, or whom I could ask as humbly as I ask you: Take me, poor, foolish Balbilla, to be your wife, guide me and make of me whatever you can, for your own honor and mine." The brief Nile voyage brought days and hours of the highest happiness to Balbilla and her lover.
She belauded Antinous, but she wrote for Pontius, and for every flower she gave the lad she had sent a thought to the architect, though with a curl on her lips of scornful defiance. But a young girl cannot be always praising the beauty of a youth in new and varied forms with complete impunity, and thus there were hours when Balbilla was inclined to believe that she really loved Antinous.
"Then send them-but to the sick boy, and not to the handsome man," retorted Pontius. Balbilla was silent, and she and her companion followed the architect to the harbor. There he parted from them, putting them into a boat which took them back to the Caesareum through one of the arch-gates under the Heptastadium.
"And perhaps this one may follow them," sighed Claudia. "Do you know what lies before you in that case?" "No, what?" "This young lady knows something of your art." "I learnt to knead clay a little of Aristaeus," interrupted Balbilla. "Aha! because Caesar set the fashion, and in Rome it would have been conspicuous not to dabble in sculpture." "Perhaps."
The people have not yet learned not to be astonished; they are perpetually in amazement. When I go out driving " "Your runners ought to fly before you with roses in their hair and wings on their shoulders like Cupids." "In honor of the Alexandrian ladies?" "As if the Roman ladies in Rome, and the fair Greeks at Athens," interrupted Balbilla.
The Empress would not let herself be seen by any one, not even by Balbilla, till she was completely dressed. A waiting-woman told Balbilla that Sabina would get up certainly, but that for the sake of her health she could not venture out in the night-air.
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