‘Nothing venture nothing win. As I have told you, you have got silly fancies into your head. The risk I run does not trouble my conscience on the score of those I leave behind me; so have done, Cestus, and trouble me no more.’ Cestus approached him, and taking his arm with one hand he pointed to the door with the other. ‘Do you forget, also, what duty you owe to the girl singing within there? You say you love her like your own child—do you forget that you are one of the chief witnesses in the task of restoring her to her proper station?’ A shadow fell on the potter’s face and his frame shivered. ‘No, I do not forget—how could I?’ he murmured, as his head fell on his breast. ‘You will take her from me.’ ‘I will take her to Rome—it will be necessary for you and Tibia to accompany us. Where, then, is the separation? You settle in Rome, and carry on your work nigh at hand. The matter is ripe and will wait no longer. Within these two days I had resolved to tell you. I have written to her grandfather to expect her, and we must go. Come, let us go in to supper and settle it; but without, as yet, telling the reason. You cannot but see that all this suits you in every way—nothing better.’ Masthlion remained silent for a few moments, with his head cast down and his fingers twining themselves nervously. Then he went apart, and stooped low on his bench, with his face in his hands. Here he remained for several minutes motionless, during which time Cestus began to pace impatiently up and down the floor. At length the potter stood up. The old care and heaviness was back on his face once more, from the burden of which he had had such a brief respite. ‘Cestus,’ he said huskily, ‘for my sake and my wife’s, and it may be for hers for all that I can tell, I wish occasion had never been to have brought you back again. We must suffer; but that is nothing if it be for her good. I have of late thought over what you have said. In one way and another it seems fated that she must leave us. I have also thought that our home here would be very dark without her, or even the consolation of knowing that she was within easy reach. I had half resolved, therefore, to follow to the city. She may be lost to us, it is true; but still they could not rob us altogether of the sight of her. That—that, at least, would be a comfort. This will decide me then. As soon as I return from Capreae we will go, and, at least, make a trial of a new home—though it is a hard task to transplant old trees.’ ‘As soon as you return from Capreae!’ echoed Cestus, his incipient satisfaction giving way in a breath to disgust. ‘You will still persist in that madness. It must never be! You have no need of Caesar—what benefit to you is a man who lives like a hermit on a rock? The rich nobles in Rome will be a thousand times the service to you—you shall not go!’