“Certainly not! I heard it from Ulpius Trajanus.” “And that no doubt is what makes you think Trajan so amiable?” “Silly child! Do you suppose...? You know, my dear, that when folks are in love, they see the whole world from one point of view.” “What do you mean?” “Well, I mean that you would say with Theognis[241] of Megara, that amiable poet: ‘Temper the pangs of love and assuage the torments, O Goddess, That gnaw my heart! Oh! restore my joy and contentment.’” “You are incorrigible!” said Claudia. But Lucilia, with a merry twinkle in her eye, laid her hand on her companion’s shoulder, saying softly: “Ah! fluttering heart, it is vain to try concealment! Your Lucilia’s experience and knowledge of mankind can see through every disguise. ‘Restore my joy, bring Aurelius to my side.’ It is the wolf in the fable--he comes softly down on his prey with a tender, elegiac grace! Sigh again--with Sappho this time--: ‘Woe is me! my tremulous heart beats faintly-- Thou art near! My faltering voice refuses utterance even!’” And she glided off, while Claudia stood gazing fixedly at the sparkling water in the basin. In her somewhat hasty retreat, Lucilia ran up against the broad back of Herodianus, who was clinging convulsively to the back of a chair with both hands, and leaning over it gazed up, as if spellbound, in silent contemplation at the star-spangled sky. “I beg your pardon, old sinner!”[242] said the girl saucily, as she passed on; but a deep sigh from the freedman made her pause. “What is the matter, oh! boon companion from the North? Are you suffering from apoplexy? or do you wish to become a mathematician?[243] Why are you staring so dolefully up at the Pleiades?” “Ah! sweet mistress--what is it the Greek sage says? ‘All things flow away!’[244] I too am flowing away. I do not know how I feel.” “The wine-cup could answer that perhaps,” suggested Lucilia. “No indeed--my feeble constitution to be sure--and that Caecubum was excellent. Perhaps it has flowed through all my limbs--but with all respect be it said, I am used to that.--And a sense of propriety--but you see, mistress, I cannot stir from the spot, and at the same time--oh no! it is not the wine, for I feel full of lofty ideas; my head is clear--uplifted, I might say, to Olympian heights--like Pelion piled on Ossa. Oh fair lady! you who are kindness itself, allow me to ask you one question...!” “Speak, you shameless toper; but first sit down, for I foresee the moment when, if you do not, the chair will slide away on the polished pavement and you will fall on the top of it.” “You are right, mistress--and it is all in my knees! my miserable legs--you are very right, the pavement is slippery. Why are pavements so polished, I wonder? Very well, then I will sit down. Excuse me if I seem to have some difficulty in doing so.--The gods have doomed the fat to labor and sweat.--There, now I am seated.”