e still
mountains and in the solitary valleys of the hunter.'

'Beautiful simile!' cried Glaucus; 'most unjust application! Exhaustion!
that word is for age, not youth. By me, at least, one moment of satiety
has never been known!'

Again the Egyptian smiled, but his smile was cold and blighting, and
even the unimaginative Clodius froze beneath its light. He did not,
however, reply to the passionate exclamation of Glaucus; but, after a
pause, he said, in a soft and melancholy voice:

'After all, you do right to enjoy the hour while it smiles for you; the
rose soon withers, the perfume soon exhales. And we, O Glaucus!
strangers in the land and far from our fathers' ashes, what is there
left for us but pleasure or regret!--for you the first, perhaps for me
the last.'

The bright eyes of the Greek were suddenly suffused with tears. 'Ah,
speak not, Arbaces,' he cried--'speak not of our ancestors. Let us
forget that there were ever other liberties than those of Rome! And
Glory!--oh, vainly would we call her ghost from the fields of Marathon
and Thermopylae!'

'Thy heart rebukes thee while thou speakest,' said the Egyptian; 'and in
thy gaieties this night, thou wilt be more mindful of Leoena than of
Lais. Vale!'

Thus saying, he gathered his robe around him, and slowly swept away.

'I breathe more freely,' said Clodius. 'Imitating the Egyptians, we
sometimes introduce a skeleton at our feasts. In truth, the presence of
such an Egyptian as yon gliding shadow were spectre enough to sour the
richest grape of the Falernian.'

'Strange man! said Glaucus, musingly; 'yet dead though he seem to
pleasure, and cold to the objects of the world, scandal belies him, or
his house and his heart could tell a different tale.'

'Ah! there are whispers of other orgies than those of Osiris in his
gloomy mansion. He is rich, too, they say. Can we not get him amongst
us, and teach him the charms of dice? Pleasure of pleasures! hot fever
of hope and fear! inexpressible unjaded passion! how fiercely beautiful
thou art, O Gaming!'

'Inspired--inspired!' cried Glaucus, laughing; 'the oracle speaks poetry
in Clodius. What miracle next!'

Chapter III

PARENTAGE OF GLAUCUS. DESCRIPTION OF THE HOUSES OF POMPEII. CLASSIC
REVEL.

HEAVEN had given to Glaucus every blessing but one: it had given him
beauty, health, fortune, genius, illustrious descent, a heart of fire, a
mind of poetry; but it had denied him the heritage of fr