“It is certainly not for myself, mother,” retorted the sculptor, “that I am anxious.  But how am I ever to get into the palace again to see Arsinoe, and how am I to deal with that ferocious old Keraunus?”

“Leave that question for time to answer,” replied Doris.

“Time may give a good answer, but it may also give a bad one.”

“And the best she only gives to those who wait for her in the antechamber of Patience.”

“A bad place for me, and for those like me,” sighed Pollux.

“You have only to sit still and go on knocking at the doors,” replied Doris, “and before you can look round you Time will call out, ‘come in.’  Now show the men how they are to treat the statue of Apollo, and be my own happy, bright boy once more.”

Pollux did as she desired, thinking as he went:  “She speaks wisely—­she is not leaving Arsinoe behind.  If only I had been able to arrange with Antinous at least, where I should find him again; but at Caesar’s orders the young fellow was like one stunned, and he tottered as he went, as if he were going to execution.”

Dame Doris had not been betrayed by her happy confidence, for Phlegon the secretary came to inform her of the Emperor’s purpose to give her husband half a talent, and to continue to pay him in the future his little salary.

“You see,” cried the old woman, “the sun of better days is already rising.  Half a talent!  Why poverty has nothing to do with such rich folks as we are!  What do you think—­would it not be right to pour out half a cup of wine to the gods, and allow ourselves the other half?”

Doris was as gay as if she were going to a wedding, and her cheerfulness communicated itself to her son, who saw himself relieved of part of the anxiety that weighed upon him with regard to his parents and sister.  His drooping courage, and spirit for life, only needed a few drops of kindly dew to revive it, and he once more began to think of his art.  Before anything else he would try to complete his successfully-sketched bust of Antinous.

While he was gone back into the house to preserve his work from injury and was giving the slaves, whom he had desired to follow him, instructions as to how it should be carried so as not to damage it, his master Papias came into the palace-court.  He had come to put the last touches to the works he had begun, and proposed to make a fresh attempt to win the favor of the man whom he now knew to be the Emperor.  Papias was somewhat uneasy for he was alarmed at the thought that Pollux might now betray how small a share his master had in his last works—­which had brought him higher praise than all he had done previously.  It might even have been wise on his part to pocket his pride and to induce his former scholar, by lavish promises, to return to his workshop; but the evening before he had been betrayed into speaking before the Emperor with so much indignation at the young artist’s evil disposition, of his delight at being rid of him, that, on Hadrian’s account, he must give up that idea.  Nothing was now to be done, but to procure the removal of Pollux from Alexandria, or to render him in some way incapable of damaging him, and this he might perhaps be able to do by the instrumentality of the wrathful Emperor.