“My good friends,” said he, in a low voice, when the wine was served, “we have with us an able officer in this young Manius, one of our assessors in Jerusalem.  I ask you to drink his health.  Though I can drink no wine, I can feel good sentiments.”

One could not help remarking his fixed serenity of face and voice and manner as he went on: 

“Some time ago it came to my ear that he thought me a tyrant wallowing in vulgar and ill-gotten luxury.”

There was a little stir in those heads around the table, and in every hand and face one might have seen evidence of quickened pulses.  The young officer was now staring through deathly pallor.

“My friends, it is not strange,” said the great Augustus, mildly.  “To Jerusalem is quite two thousand miles; and, then he was very young when he left the home of his fathers.  Am I not right, Manius?”

“Your words are both true and kindly,” said the young man.

“And you are discerning,” said the emperor, with a smile.  “Now, good people, observe that I have invited our young officer to Rome for two purposes:  to show him, first, that I live no better than the poorest nobleman; secondly, that I am only a servant of the people; for, since he is an able officer, I shall resist my own will and keep him in the public service.”

“Bravo!” said they all, and clapped their hands.

A strange, inscrutable man was the emperor at that moment, the mildness of a lamb in his voice and manner, the gleam of a serpent’s eye under his brows.  And that right hand of his, clinched now and quivering a little, had it grasped a reaching, invisible serpent within him?  Kindly?  Yes, but with the kindness of a deep and subtle character who saw in forbearance the best politics and the most effective discipline.  Lights were now aglow in a great candelabrum over the table and in many tall lampadaria.

A slave, who was a juggler, came near and began to fill the gloom above him with golden disks.  From afar came the music of flutes and timbrels.  Julia retired presently, and returned soon with her pet dwarf Cenopas.  She stood him on a large, round table, and the guests greeted him with loud laughter as he looked down.  He had a hard, unlovely face, that little dwarf.  He suggested to Vergilius unwelcome thoughts of a new sort of Cupid—­deformed, evil, and hideous—­typifying the degenerate passions of Rome.  There were in the quiver of this Cupid arrows which carried the venom of the asp.  Some at the table mocked his grinning face and made a jest of his deformity.  When he could be heard he mimicked the speech and manners of public men.

“A Cupid with a knot in his back,” said one.

“And if I were to aim an arrow at you,” said the dwarf, quickly, “I’m sure you’d have a pain in yours.”

“My dear,” said the gentle-mannered emperor, when the laughter had died away, “I think we shall now give him the crown of folly and let him go.”