Balbilla, as she spoke the last words, tried to mimic a man's deep voice, and seeing the Empress smile she went on eagerly. "It all came out so fresh, from a heart full to bursting of happy vigorous creative joy, that it quite fired me, and we all went up to the screen and begged the sculptor to let us see his work." "And you found?" asked Sabina. "He positively refused to let us into his retreat," replied the praetor; "but Balbilla coaxed the permission out of him, and the tall young fellow seems to have really learnt something. The fall of the drapery that covers the Muse's figure is perfectly thought out with reference to possibility--rich, broadly handled, and at the same time of surprising delicacy. Urania has drawn her mantle closely round her, as if to protect herself from the keen night-air while gazing at the stars. When he has finished his Muse, he is to repair some mutilated busts of women; he was fixing the head of a finished Berenice to-day, and I proposed to him to take Balbilla as the model for his Sappho." "A good idea" said the Empress. "If the bust is successful I will take him with me to Rome." "I will sit to him with pleasure," said the girl. "The bright young fellow took my fancy." "And Balbilla his," added the praetor's wife; he gazed at her as a marvel, and she promised him that, with your permission, she would place her face at his disposal for three hours to-morrow." "He begins with the head," interposed Verus. "What a happy man is an artist such as he! He may turn about her head, or lay her peplum in folds without reproof or repulse, and to-day when we had to get past bogs of plaster, and lakes of wet paint, she scarcely picked up the hem of her dress, and never once allowed me--who would so willingly have supported her--to lift her over the worst places." Balbilla reddened and said angrily: "Really Verus, in good earnest, I will not allow you to speak to me in that way, so now you know it once for all; I have so little liking for what is not clean that I find it quite easy to avoid it without assistance." "You are too severe," interrupted the Empress with a hideous smile. "Do not you think Domitia Lucilla, that she ought to allow your husband to be of service to her?" "If the Empress thinks it right and fitting," replied the lady raising her shoulders, and with an expressive movement of her hands. Sabina quite took her meaning, and suppressing another yawn she said angrily: "In these days we must be indulgent toward a husband who has chosen Ovid's amatory poems as his faithful companion. What is the matter Titianus?" While Balbilla had been relating her meeting with the sculptor Pollux, a chamberlain had brought in to the prefect an important letter, admitting of no delay. The state official had withdrawn to the farther side of the room with it, had broken the strong seal and had just finished reading it, when the Empress asked her question.