‘You sent for Priscus this morning,’ murmured he, between the sips of the wine which she had tasted for him with her ripe lips.
She started and he smiled.
‘Priscus told me,’ he said, laying his thin hand quietly on her arm. ‘Why do you start? Do you think you have committed some grave offence? Can you not send for whom you please—myself included?’
‘You are too good,’ murmured Plautia, with a pretty assumption of bashful pleasure.
‘Yes,’ continued the Emperor, feasting his eyes on the lovely colour which deepened in her face. ‘You feel interested in the artisan and the work he showed us last night, and you sent for Priscus. I am displeased—you ought to have sent your pleasure to me, who can better serve you than Priscus.’
‘It was nothing—yet I confess the man’s appearance and his work interested me—I wished to know what you had determined with regard to him!’
‘I am counselled to think that his invention would not be the benefit which, at first glance, it would seem to be. It is necessary to consider it in conjunction with other things. However, if the fellow is likely to suffer by his unlucky idea, we may be able to make it up in some other particular—let us have him here and hear what he has to say.’
One of the attendants was despatched, and in a short time returned with Masthlion.
The potter came before them with his customary respectful, but self-possessed bearing; but his expression was a trifle more anxious and careworn, as if delay and want of encouragement had dispirited him. His hopes had been very sanguine.
His eyes eagerly tried to glean from the Emperor’s impassive face some trace of the bent of his thoughts, but without result.