“And so you are spared many a gloomy day,” interrupted Hadrian.

“That is just what I would have said.”

“And your advice is excellent, for you and for every other loiterer through the gay fair-time of an idle life,” replied the Emperor, “but the man whose task it is to bear millions in safety and over abysses, must watch the signs around him, look out far and near, and never dare close his eyes, even when such terrors loom as it was my fate to see during the past night.”

As he spoke, Phlegon, the Emperor’s private secretary, came in with letters just received from Rome, and approached his master.  He bowed low, and taking up Hadrian’s last words he said: 

“The stars disquiet you, Caesar?”

“Well, they warn me to be on my guard,” replied Hadrian.

“Let us hope that they be,” cried the Greek, with cheerful vivacity.  “Cicero was not altogether wrong when he doubted the arts of Astrology.”

“He was a mere talker!” said the Emperor, with a frown.

“But,” asked Phlegon, “would it not be fair that if the horoscopes cast for Cneius or Caius, let us say, were alike, to expect that Cneius or Caius must have the same temperament and the same destiny through life if they had happened to be born in the same hour?”

“Always the old commonplaces, the old silly objections!” interrupted Hadrian, vexed to the verge of rage.  “Speak when you are spoken to, and do not trouble yourself about things you do not understand and which do not concern you.  Is there anything of importance among these papers?”

Antinous gazed at his sovereign in astonishment; why should Phlegon’s objections make him so furious when he had answered his so kindly?

Hadrian paid no farther heed to him, but read the despatches one after another, hastily but attentively, wrote brief notes on the margins, signed a decree with a firm hand, and, when his work was finished desired the Greek to leave him.  Hardly was he alone with Antinous when the loud cries and jovial shouting of a large multitude came to their ears through the open window.

“What does this mean?” he asked Mastor, and as soon as he had been informed that the workmen and slaves had just been let out to give themselves up to the pleasures of their holiday, he muttered to himself: 

“These creatures can riot, shout, dress themselves with garlands, forget themselves in a debauch—­and I, I whom all envy—­I spoil my brief span of life with vain labors, let myself be tormented with consuming cares—­I—­” here he broke off and cried in quite an altered tone: 

“Ha! ha!  Antinous, you are wiser than I. Let us leave the future to the future.  The feast-day is ours too; let us take advantage of this day of freedom.  We too will throw ourselves into the holiday whirlpool disguised, I as a satyr, and you as a young faun or something of the kind; we will drain cups, wander round the city and enjoy all that is enjoyable.”