nerva by the side of Juno, the stately mother of the gods.

His disappointment was great when he found the door of the temple
closed, and was forced to return to Memphis without having seen either
Klea or the recluse.

He could try again to-morrow to accomplish what had been impossible
to-day, but his wish to see the girl he loved, rose to a torturing
longing, and as he sat once more in his tent to finish his second
despatch to Rome the thought of Klea came again to disturb his serious
work. Twenty times he started up to collect his thoughts, and as often
flung away his reed as the figure of the water-bearer interposed between
him and the writing under his hand; at last, out of patience with
himself, he struck the table in front of him with some force, set his
fists in his sides hard enough to hurt himself, and held them there for
a minute, ordering himself firmly and angrily to do his duty before he
thought of anything else.

His iron will won the victory; by the time it was growing dusk the
despatch was written. He was in the very act of stamping the wax of
the seal with the signet of his family--engraved on the sardonyx of his
ring--when one of his servants announced a black slave who desired to
speak with him. Publius ordered that he should be admitted, and the
negro handed him the tile on which Eulaeus had treacherously written
Klea's invitation to meet her at midnight near the Apis-tombs. His
enemy's crafty-looking emissary seemed to the young man as a messenger
from the gods; in a transport of haste and, without the faintest shadow
of a suspicion he wrote, "I will be there," on the luckless piece of
clay.

Publius was anxious to give the letter to the Senate, which he had just
finished, with his own hand, and privately, to the messenger who had
yesterday brought him the despatch from Rome; and as he would rather
have set aside an invitation to carry off a royal treasure that same
night than have neglected to meet Klea, he could not in any case be a
guest at the king's banquet, though Cleopatra would expect to see him
there in accordance with his promise. At this juncture he was annoyed to
miss his friend Lysias, for he wished to avoid offending the queen;
and the Corinthian, who at this moment was doubtless occupied in some
perfectly useless manner, was as clever in inventing plausible excuses
as he himself was dull in such matters. He hastily wrote a few lines to
the friend who shared his tent, requesting hi