applause rose from the antechamber. They proceeded from the friends of
Caesar, and the deep voices of the Germanic bodyguard, who, joining in
with the cries they had learned in the Circus, lent such impetuous force
to the applause, as even to satisfy this artist in the purple.

Therefore, when Philostratus spoke words of praise, and Melissa thanked
him with a blush, he answered with a smile: "There is something frank
and untrammeled in their manner of expressing their feelings outside.
Forced applause sounds differently. There must be something in my
singing that carries the hearers away. My Alexandrian hosts, however,
are overready to show me what they think. It did not escape me, and I
shall add it to the rest."

Then he invited Melissa to make a return for his song by singing Sappho's
Ode to Aphrodite. Pale, and as if obeying some strange compulsion, she
seated herself at the instrument, and the prelude sounded clear and
tuneful from her skillful fingers.

"Beautiful! Worthy of Mesomedes!" cried Caracalla, but Melissa could
not sing, for at the first note her voice was broken by stormy sobs.

"The power of the goddess whom she meant to extol!" said Philostratus,
pointing to her; and the tearful, beseeching look with which she met the
emperor's gaze while she begged him in low tones--"Not now! I can not do
it to-day!"--confirmed Caracalla in his opinion that the passion he had
awakened in the maiden was in no way inferior to his own-perhaps even
greater. He relieved his full heart by whispering to Melissa a
passionate, "I love you," and, desiring to show her by a favor how kindly
he felt toward her, added: "I will not let your fellow-citizens wait
outside any longer--Adventus! The deputation from the Circus!"