sitting-room of the mistress of the house, an artistic but not splendid
apartment, adorned only with the choicest works of early Alexandrian art.
Philostratus listened attentively, but, before she could put her petition
for help into words, he exclaimed:

"Then what we have to do is, to move Caesar to mercy, and that--Child,
you know not what you ask!"

They were interrupted by a message from Seleukus, desiring Coeranus to
join the other guests, and as soon as he had left them Berenike withdrew
to take off the splendor she hated. She promised to return immediately
and join their discussion, and Philostratus sat for a while lost in
thought. Then he turned to Melissa and asked her:

"Would you for their sakes be able to make up your mind to face bitter
humiliation, nay, perhaps imminent danger?"

"Anything! I would give my life for them!" replied the girl, with
spirit, and her eyes gleamed with such enthusiastic self-sacrifice that
his heart, though no longer young, warmed under their glow, and the
principle to which he had sternly adhered since he had been near the
imperial person, never to address a word to the sovereign but in reply,
was blown to the winds.

Holding her hand in his, with a keen look into her eyes, he went on:

"And if you were required to do a thing from which many a man even would
recoil--you would venture?"

And again the answer was a ready "Yes." Philostratus released her hand,