small man assumes a strutting air of importance because he fancies he has
discovered in some great man a weak spot where his own little body
happens to be sound. The artist I am expecting is a grand man, but the
Emperor Hadrian is a grander. Now retire behind your screens, and
tomorrow morning I will be your guest."




CHAPTER XI.

Pontius threw his pallium over the chiton he commonly wore at his work
and went forward to meet the sovereign of the world, whose arrival had
been announced to him in the prefect's letter. He was perfectly calm,
and if his heart beat a little faster than usual, it was only because he
was pleased once more to meet the wonderful man whose personality had
made a deep impression on him before.

In the happy consciousness of having done all that lay in his power and
of deserving no blame, he went through the ante-chambers and chief
entrance of the palace into the fore-court, where a crowd of slaves were
busied by torch-light in laying new marble slabs. Neither these workmen
nor their overseers had paid any heed to the barking of the dogs and the
loud talking which had for some little time been audible in the vicinity
of the gate-keeper's lodge; for a special rate of payment had been
promised to the laborers and their foremen if they should have finished a
set piece of the new pavement by a certain hour, to the satisfaction of
the architect. No one who heard the deep man's-voice ring through the
court from the doorway guessed to whom it belonged.