He bowed to go. Melissa did the same, saying, as airily as though she were free to come and go here:
"Accept my thanks, great Caesar. Oh, how fervently will I pray for you all my life, if only you show mercy to my father and brothers!"
"That means that you are leaving me?" asked Caracalla.
"How can it be otherwise?" said Melissa, timidly. "I am but a girl, and the men whom you expect—"
"But when they are gone?" Caesar insisted.
"Even then you can not want me," she murmured.
"You mean," said Caracalla, bitterly, "that you are afraid to come back. You mean that you would rather keep out of the way of the man you prayed for, so long as he is well. And if the pain which first aroused your sympathy attacks him again, even then will you leave the irascible sovereign to himself or the care of the gods?"
"Not so, not so," said Melissa, humbly, looking into his eyes with an expression that pierced him to the heart, so that he added, with gentle entreaty:
"Then show that you are she whom I believe you to be. I do not compel you. Go whither you will, stay away even if I send for you; but"—and here his brow clouded again—"why should I try to be merciful to her from whom I looked for sympathy and kindliness, when she flees from me like the rest?"
"O my lord!" Melissa sighed distressfully. "Go!" Caesar went on. "I do not need you."