urnishings.

There were only two persons in the room. One of them,--a handsome
young Hellene, evidently a freedman, was sitting on a low chair with
an open roll before him. His companion half sat and half lay on a
divan near by. This second person was a man of height unusual to
Italians of his day; his cheeks were pale and a little sunken; his
dark eyes were warm, penetrating; his mouth and chin mobile and even
affable, but not a line suggested weakness. The forehead was high,
massive, and was exaggerated by a semi-baldness which was only
partially concealed by combing the dark, grey-streaked hair forward.
He was reclining; if he had arisen he would have displayed a frame at
once to be called soldierly, though spare and hardly powerful. To
complete the figure it should be added that on one finger he wore a
large ring set with a very beautiful seal of an armed Venus; and over
his loose but carefully arranged tunic was thrown a short, red mantle,
caught together on the left shoulder--the paludamentum, a garment only
worn by Roman military officers of the very highest rank.

The general--for so his dress proclaimed him--was playing with a
stylus and a waxen tablet, while the young Greek read. Now and then he
would bid the latter pause while he made a few notes. The book was
Euripides's "Troades."

"Read those lines again," interrupted the general. The voice was
marvellously flexile, powerful, and melodious.

And the freedman repeated:--

"Sow far and wide, plague, famine, and distress;
Make women widows, children fatherless;
Break down the altars of the gods, and tread
On quiet graves, the temples of the dead;
Play to life's end this wicked witless game
And you will win what knaves and fools call Fame!"[122]

[122] Translated in the collection "Sales Attici."

The freedman waited for his superior to ask him to continue, but the
request did not come. The general seemed lost in a reverie; his
expressive dark eyes were wandering off in a kind of quiet melancholy,
gazing at the glass water-clock at the end of the room, but evidently
not in the least seeing it.

"I have heard enough Euripides to-day," at length he remarked. "I must
attend to more important matters. You may leave me."

The Greek rolled up the volume, placed it in the cupboard, and left
the room with noiseless step. The general had arisen, and was standing
beside the open window that looked out into a quiet little court. It
was dark. Th