"You have no friends?"

"NO. You're the only friend I've had in ever so long. All my other friends grew up and went away. Adrian I'm twenty-two, but I haven't ever really grown up at all. I'm not like Domenica I can't grow up by myself. And Adrian I've been trying to work up nerve enough to ask you for a long time can't you take me with you sometime on one of your trips?"

"Take you ... ?" you...

"To Germany or somewhere. I know it's a lot to ask, but I could be very inconspicuous. And Domenica wouldn't mind. She says that travelling broadens people." He seemed suddenly conscience-stricken. "I haven't meant to say anything unkind about Domenica. It isn't that I don't love her, but she's my sister, not a friend. No, I didn't mean it that way, either. Oh, Adrian, don't you see?" In inarticulate confusion, Tony flung himself, like a small boy, on Adrian's shoulder. With a violent start, Adrian averted his face. "Gently, Tony! For God's sake, gently!"

Tony drew away, frightened.

"I'm sorry, Adrian, I'm so sorry. I'll never learn to grow up." He placed the music-box on his knees, and stared at it, red with embarrassment. Adrian turned to him again.

"I'm the one who should apologize." He reached over and opened the music-box, which began its preoccupied little song once more. At last Tony looked up with an uncertain smile.

"You must give me time to think," said Adrian softly. "Another day we can talk it over with Domenica." He stood up slowly, almost unsurely. "Now come, little one, I must pay my respects to your sister."

Domenica closed the casement against the garden, and forced down her emotions once more, systematically smoothing them over with a bitter surface of pride. Steadying herself before the mirror, she prepared to meet her guest.

Adrian tilted his glass and watched the liquid curve toward the rim. After prolonged deliberation, he put down the glass and lit a cigarette instead. In the resulting silence, Tony gathered enough assurance to speak.

"I spent the morning reading about Antinous."

Adrian looked pleased, but Domenica's jaw tightened.

"Ah? And what did you learn?"

Hardly anything. The books only gave the bare outline of a story."

"But one of the most useless stories in the world," interpolated Domenica, with calculated sharpness. Adrian raised his eyebrows and turned to her with a certain deliberation of his own.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because it's cruel and pointless." She chose her words with caution, to counterbalance the recklessness of her thoughts. "The Emperor Hadrian conceived a passion for all things Hellenic, including a young Greek, Antinous, whom he added to his retinue. Only a few years later, Antinous died mysteriously, drowned in the Nile. Knowing that he was responsible for the death of his favorite, the Emperor originated a religious cult in his honor, as a sort of weak apology to history. Where is the beauty in a story of that sort?"

Adrian winced and looked unbelievingly at Domenica.

"How can you possibly see it that way? In the first place, why be so certain that the Emperor was directly responsible for Antinous' death? The facts are not known the drowning might have been an accident."

"I doubt it," replied Domenica coolly. "There are always grounds for the darkest suspicion when a person in a high position dies under mysterious circumstances and violently. Especially when the office he has occupied is one founded on an emotional basis. And the Emperor, by exposing Antinous to the intrigues of a Roman court was undoubtedly responsible for his death in more than one sense."

He nodded impatiently. "I'll concede that point for the time being. It's primarily the 'weak apology to history' you mentioned that disturbs me. There was nothing unusual about the presence of a male concubine in a Roman

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