It was with a strange feeling of spellbound astonishment, that Quintus gazed into the speaker’s face, which was radiant with solemn but triumphant peace. Glauce had gently leaned her head on her father’s shoulder, as though it was in him that she sought and found her mainstay in the struggle with life; and in spite of the mournful feeling which still left its traces round her lips, silent contentment lay on the pure young brow. She sat with downcast eyes, her hands folded in gentle exhaustion. Euterpe and Diphilus hung in rapt reverence on the lips of the old man, who, to them, seemed to stand in the light of a radiance from heaven. Quintus was unutterably impressed by the individuality of this strong, resolute and triumphantly happy believer. His aversion to this new doctrine of the universe began to melt like snow on Soracte in a spring breeze. Vigorously as self-love rebelled, conviction proved the stronger. In his hours of solitude the same reflections had often occurred to him, and commended themselves to his feelings, but the denunciation of the existing state of things had never before been so boldly presented to him. It must be a stout heart and a powerful mind, that could deny the intrinsic justification of a social order so complete as that of the Roman empire, and cry to a nation of nobles and slaves: “All men are brothers!” It would be worth while to see and hear more of this Nazarene Gracchus,[279] and to sound the depths of the mysterious power, which gave such staunch vitality to the new doctrine, even after the fearful persecutions of Nero. All these reflections rushed in a tumultuous torrent through the young patrician’s soul. He could no longer bear the confinement of the low, hot room. He rose, trying to conceal under a smile of careless politeness how deeply he had been interested and absorbed; he paced up and down the little room once or twice, and then said with a certain condescension: “I should be grateful to you if, at an early opportunity, you would tell me more concerning your doctrine; I am always glad to gain information at the fountainhead. For the present I bid you farewell. Early to-morrow morning I shall do my utmost for Eurymachus; pray to your God, that He may crown our efforts with success.” Euterpe conducted the visitor down stairs again, and then flew back to the little room where Glauce and Diphilus had already moved the table and arranged a little altar for an offering for the dead, on behalf of the luckless Philippus.