"He is not yet forty!"
"Just look, Eugenes! He has sprung from his horse. What is he doing?"
"Didn't you see? A child, a Roman boy, fell while trying to run in front of his charger. He lifted him up, and is seeking to find out whether he was hurt."
"The child wasn't harmed; it is smiling at him and seizing his glittering necklet. There--he is unfastening the chain and putting it into the little fellow's hands. He kisses him and gives him back to his mother. Hark, how the crowd is cheering him! Now he has leaped back into the saddle. He knows how to win favor."
"There you wrong him. It is his nature. He would have done the same where no eye beheld him. And he need not win the favor of the people: he has long possessed it."
"Among the Vandals?"
"Among the Romans, too; that is, the middle and lower classes. The senators, it is true, are different! Those who still live in Africa hate all who bear the name of Vandal; they have good reason for it, too. But Gelimer has a heart to feel for us; he helps wherever he can, and often opposes his own people; they are almost all violent, prone to sudden anger, and in their rage savagely cruel. I above all others have cause to thank him."
"You? Why?"
"You saw Eugenia, my daughter, before we left our house?"
"Certainly. Into what a lovely girl the frail child whom you brought from Syracuse a few years ago has blossomed!"