to the enjoyment of life. Generally in such lonely hours of idle reverie
his thoughts reverted to his belongings in Bithynia, of whom he never
dared to speak before the Emperor, or perhaps of the hunting excursions
he had made with Hadrian, of the slaughtered game, of the fish he--an
experienced angler--had caught, or such like. What the future might
bring him troubled him not, for to the love of creativeness, to ambition
--to all, in short, that bore any resemblance to a passionate excitement
his soul had, so far, remained a stranger. The admiration which was
universally excited by his beauty gave him no pleasure, and many a time
he felt as though it was not worth while to stir a limb or draw a breath.
Almost everything he saw was indifferent to him excepting a kind word
from the lips of the Emperor, whom he regarded as great above all other
men, whom he feared as Destiny incarnate, and to whom he felt himself
bound as intimately as the flower to the tree, the blossom that must die
when the stem is broken, on which it flaunts as an ornament and a grace.

But, to-day, as he flung himself on the divan his visions took a new
direction. He could not help thinking of the pale girl whom he had saved
from the jaws of the blood-hound--of the white cold hand which for an
instant had clung to his neck--of the cold words with which she had
afterwards repelled him.

Antinous began to long violently to see Selene. That same Antinous, to
whom in all the cities he had visited with the Emperor, and in Rome
particularly, the noble fair ones had sent branches of flowers and tender
letters, and who nevertheless, since the day when he left his home, had
never felt for any woman or girl half so tender a sentiment, as for the
hunter the Emperor had given him, or for the big dog. This girl stood
before his memory like breathing marble. Perchance the man might be
doomed to death who should rest on her cold breast, but such a death must