His head grew grey; he became pleasantly corpulent, his sage speeches more and more honeyed and insinuating, his cheeks more rosy, his eyes more kindly and brilliant. At moments an evil irony sparkled in them, as of some cold and arrogant spirit, but the eyelids would promptly drop and the sparkle vanish. All his habits were clerical. He was a strict observer of fasts, and an exquisite judge of cookery. His lean diet was more refined than the most sumptuous course of holiday feeding; just as his ecclesiastical witticisms were keener than the frankest pleasantries of the Pagans. He used to be served with a cooling drink made of beetroot and savoured with delicious spices. Many thought it preferable to wine. When denied ordinary wheaten bread he invented cakes of a desert manna, with which, it is said, Pachomius fed himself in Egypt. Ill-natured folk insinuated that Hekobolis was a libertine, and quaint tales were told about him at Constantinople. A young woman avowed to her confessor that she had fallen from chastity-- "It is a great sin! And with whom were you guilty, my daughter?" "With Hekobolis, father!" The priestly visage cleared up. "With Hekobolis; ah, really! Well, well, the holy man is devoted to the Church! Repent, my daughter; the Lord will forgive!" Such anedoctes were mere tittle-tattle. But his thick red lips were a trifle too prominent in the respectable shorn visage of the dignitary, although he usually kept them tightly closed, with an expression of monastic humility. Women were fond of his company. Sometimes Hekobolis used to disappear for several days. No one fathomed the mystery, for he kept his own counsel. Neither servant nor slave accompanied him on these enigmatic journeys, from which he would return calmed and refreshed. Under the Emperor Constantius, he received the appointment of Court rhetorician, with a superb salary, the senatorial laticlave, and the blue shoulder-ribbon, a distinction of the highest dignitaries. Nor was his ambition satisfied. But at the moment when Hekobolis was preparing to mount a step higher, Constantius unexpectedly died. Julian, the Church's enemy, ascended the throne. Hekobolis lost no whit of his presence of mind. He merely did what many others were doing, but did it neither too soon nor too late. Julian, in the first days of his reign, organised a theological controversy in his palace. A young doctor of philosophy, esteemed by everybody for his uprightness and noble nature, Cæsar of Cappadocia,--brother of the famous theologian, Basil the Great,--undertook the defence of the Christian faith against the Emperor himself. In such tournaments of learning Julian authorised an entire independence of language, and even liked to be answered with passion and complete disregard of rank.