n, "Still the actor!"

"Yes, still!" retorted the favorite, in a hard voice. "You, however,
have been even longer--what you have, indeed, been too long--Prefect
of Egypt!" With an angry fling he threw the corner of his toga over his
shoulder, and, though his hand shook with rage, the pliant drapery fell
in graceful folds over his athletic limbs. He turned his back on the
prefect, and, with the air of a general who has just been crowned with
laurels, he stalked through the anteroom and past Philip once more.

The philosopher had told his sister all this in a few sentences. He now
paused in his walk to and fro to answer Melissa's question as to whether
this upstart's influence were really great enough to turn so noble and
worthy a man out of his office.

"Can you ask?" said Philip. "Titianus had no doubts from the first;
and what I heard in the Serapeum--but all in good time. The prefect was
sorry for my father and Alexander, but ended by saying that he
himself needed an intercessor; for, if it were not to-day, at any
rate to-morrow, the actor would inveigle Caesar into signing his
death-warrant."

"Impossible!" cried the girl, spreading out her hands in horror; but
Philip dropped into a seat, saying:

"Listen to the end. There was evidently nothing to be hoped for from
Titianus. He is, no doubt, a brave man, but there is a touch of the
actor in him too. He is a Stoic; and where would be the point of that,
if a man could not appear to look on approaching death as calmly as on
taking a bath?

"Titianus plays his part well. However, I next went to the Serapeum--it
is a long way, and it was very hot in the sun--to ask for help from my
old patron, the high-priest. Caesar is now his guest; and the prefect,
too, had advised me to place my father's cause in his hands."

Here Philip sprang up again, and rushed up and down, sometimes stopping
for a moment in front of his sister while he went on with his story.

Theocritus had long since reached the Serapeum in his swift chariot when
the philosopher at last arrived there on foot. He was well known as a
frequent visitor, and was shown at once into the hall of that part of
his abode which Timotheus had reserved for himself when he had given up
all the best rooms to his imperial visitor.

The anteroom was crowded, and before he got any farther he heard that
the favorite's accusations had already led to serious results, and
rumors were rife concerning the luckless witticisms