That evening, when Tigellinus left him, Nero first realised, with a start of horror, that he was on the eve of a fearful crime. By a rare accident he was alone. One of the reasons why he knew so little of himself was that he scarcely ever endured a moment’s solitude. From the time that he awoke in the morning till the latest hour of his nightly revels, he was surrounded by flatterers and favourites, by dissolute young nobles or adoring slaves. It was only for an occasional hour or two of state business that he saw any person of dignity or moral worth. This evening he would have been encircled by his usual throng of idlers if he had not broken up the banquet in anger long before the expected time. He was alone, and his thoughts naturally reverted to the song of Britannicus, and to his own fierce mortification. The words ‘=_He shall die!_=’ broke from his lips. But at that moment, looking up, his glance was arrested by two busts of white marble, standing out from the wall on pedestals of porphyry. He remembered the day on which they had been placed there by the orders of Claudius, in whose private _tablinum_ he chanced to be sitting. One was a beautiful likeness of Britannicus at the age of six years. The other was a bust of himself in the happy and radiant days of his early boyhood, before guilt had clouded his brow and stained his heart. He rose and stood before the bust of Britannicus. For some years they had been inmates of the same palace. They had been playmates, and at first, before the development of Agrippina’s darker plots, there had been between them some shadow of affection. Nero had always felt that there was a winning charm about the character and bearing of his adoptive brother. Anger and jealousy whispered, ‘Kill him;’ conscience pleaded, ‘Dip not your young hands in blood. There has been enough of crime already. You know how Claudius died, and who was his murderess, and for whose gain. Let it suffice. Britannicus is no conspirator. It is not too late, even yet, to make him your friend.’ He turned to his own bust. It represented a face fairer, more joyous, more mobile than that of the son of Claudius. ‘I was a very pretty child,’ said Nero, and then gazed earnestly into the mirror which hung between the busts. It showed him a face, of which the features were the same, but of which the expression was changed, and on which many a bad passion, recklessly indulged, had already stamped its debasing seal. ‘Ye gods! how altered I am!’ he murmured; and he hid his face in his hands, as though to shut out the image in the mirror.