place without Pollux, who was still speaking to the prefect, and he said
gravely as he approached Balbilla:

"You have every reason to be angry, noble lady. This thing is an insult
in clay, malicious, and at the same time coarse in every detail; but it
was not Pollux who did it, and it is not right to condemn without a
trial."

"You take your friend's part!" exclaimed Balbilla. "I would not tell a
lie for my own brother."

"You know how to give your words the aspect of an honorable meaning in
serious matters, as he does in jest."

"You are angry and unaccustomed to bridle your tongue," replied the
architect. "Pollux, I repeat it, did not perpetrate the caricature, but
a sculptor from Rome."

"Which of them? I know them all."

"I may not name him."

"There--you see.--Come away Claudia."

"Stay," said Pontius, decisively. "If you were any one but yourself, I
would let you go at once in your anger, and with the double charge on
your conscience of doing an injustice to two well-meaning men. But as
you are the granddaughter of Claudius Balbillus, I feel it to be due to
myself to say, that if Pollux had really made this monstrous bust he
would not be in this palace now, for I should have turned him out and