hen he began to count out the gold pieces, gleefully dropping some into
his pouch, and reluctantly putting others back into the purse. From the
first he had established in his own mind the valuation which he would
place upon the slave; and he had taken care to make his calculation upon
such a liberal scale that he could well afford to consent to a large
deduction, if it were required of him. Now he reasoned that, as his
child had merely told him to take out what was proper, there could be no
impropriety in paying himself at the highest possible price. She would
never mind, and there were many comforts which he needed, and which an
extra gold piece or two would enable him to procure for himself.

Then, as he weighed the purse and pondered over it, numerous wants and
requirements, which he had hardly known until that time, came into his
mind. He might supply them all, if he were not too timid or scrupulous
in availing himself of an opportunity such as might never come to him
again. Had even his first valuation of the slave been a sufficient one?
He ought certainly to consider that the man could read and write, and
was of such beauty and grace that he could be trained to a most courtly
air; and it was hardly proper to sell him for no more than the price of
a couple of gladiators, mere creatures of bone and brawn. And, in any
event, it was hardly probable that AEnone knew the true value of slaves,
or even remembered how much her purse had contained.

Thus meanly reflecting, the centurion dropped more of the gold pieces
into his pocket, all the while eying the slave with keen scrutiny, as
though calculating the market value of every hair upon his head. Then,
with a sigh, he handed back the purse, most wofully lightened of its
contents, and turned from the room, endeavoring to compose his features
into a decent appearance of sober indifference, and muttering that he
would not have allowed himself to be betrayed into giving up such a
prize so cheaply had it not been that he had an especial regard for the
imperator Sergius Vanno, and that the house of Porthenus had never
nourished mere traders to wrangle and chaffer over their property.

In one of his conjectures he had been correct. It was little that AEnone
knew or cared about the price she was paying. Had the purse been
returned to her entirely empty, she would have thrown it unheedingly
into the drawer, and have never dreamed but that all had been rightly
done. There was n