An intimation of aversion to his person was one of the things which to
him were past endurance; he hastily passed his hand through his blue-
black hair, which was only slightly grizzled at the temples and flowed
uncurled, but in soft waving locks round his head, and said, not heeding
Sabina's question as to his opinion of her husband's latest instructions:

"He is a repulsive fellow, that wrangling logician; he has an evil eye
that threatens mischief to us all, and his trumpet voice cannot hurt you
more than it does me. Must we endure him at table with us every day?"

"So Hadrian desires."

"Then I shall start for Rome," said Verus decidedly. "My wife wants to
be back with her children, and as praetor, it is more fitting that I
should stay by the Tiber than by the Nile."

The words were spoken as lightly as though they were nothing more than a
proposition to go to supper, but they seemed to agitate the Empress
deeply, for her head, which had seemed almost a fixture during her
conversation with Titianus, now shook so violently that the pearls and
jewels rattled in the erection of curls. There she sat for some seconds
staring into her lap.

Verus stooped to pick up a gem that had fallen from her hair, and as he
did so she said hastily:

"You are right. Apollonius is intolerable. Let us send him to meet my
husband."