Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/57

 once had been so characteristic. And now? Why now John was an actor. Not Nero yonder, harp in hand, looked more nearly like his part. Hampstead had put on the pose, the voice, the walk, as he had put on the bearskin and the beard.

"Isn't he w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l?" breathed Bessie, with a little squeeze of her father's arm.

Mitchell laughed amiably and reached out for the curling lock upon his brow which was his mainstay in time of mental shipwreck and began to twist it, while he waited impatiently to see more of Ursus.

But the play appeared to have forgotten Ursus. A great party was on in the palace of Cæsar. The stage was alive with lights and music, and with the movements of many people—senators in togas, generals in armor, women with jewels in their hair and golden bands upon their white, gracefully swelling arms. There was drinking and laughter and high carousal. In right center, Cæsar upon his throne was singing and pretending to strike notes from a harp of pasteboard and gilt, notes which in reality proceeded from the orchestra pit. At lower left upon a couch sat Lygia, the Christian maiden, beautiful beyond imagining and being greatly annoyed by the love-makings of the half-intoxicated Roman soldier, Vinicius, who had laid aside his helmet and his sword, and was pleading with the lovely but embarrassed girl, at first upon his knees, then standing, with one knee upon the couch, while he trailed his fingers luxuriously through the glossy blackness of her hair.

As the love-making proceeded, Lygia's apprehension grew. When Vinicius pressed her tresses to his lips, she shrank from him. When, after another cup of wine and just as the whole court was in raptures over the conclusion of Cæsar's song, Vinicius attempted to place his kisses yet more daringly, Lygia started up with a cry of