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    They had now reached the clearing before the gardens of the house of Aeneas. Tall palms stretched to the moon; the evening air was full of the scent of flowers. In the midst of them stood the shining white house of the bookkeeper, small, low and compact, streaked with the shadows of the palms. A light glowed from the open door, and as Diodorus and Lucanus approached it the doorway was filled by the shapely form of a young woman, and the light behind her made a cloud of gold of her loosened hair. She was clad in the simple white robe of a woman who spent all of her time in the home, and she called out anxiously.
     
    “Lucanus? Is it you, dear one?”
     
    Lucanus replied, “It is I, Mother.” Iris stepped down onto the grass, then stopped on seeing who was accompanied by her son.
     
    “I greet you, Iris,” said Diodorus, and his voice was thick and low in his throat. He thought of the words of Homer: “Daughter of the gods, divinely tall and most divinely fair.”
     
    “Greetings, noble Diodorus,” replied Iris, uncertainly. He had addressed her so gently, as a man addressed the wife of one of his peers, and yet the gentleness reached out to her eagerly and with an intonation of hope. For some reason Iris’ eyes stung with tears, and she remembered the playmate of her childhood. He had been so candid and courageous a boy, so truthful and kind, so honorable, so filled with affection for her. She had not seen him, except at a distance, for a long time, and since she had married Aeneas he had scarcely noticed her existence.
     
    Aeneas appeared in the doorway, then he too stepped down. Seeing Diodorus, he bowed. “Welcome to our poor home, lord,” he said, in the trembling accents of a man who is overcome.
     
    “It is not a ‘poor’ home,” replied Diodorus, irascibly. “It was the home of the former legate of Antioch, before my house was built for me, and he did not consider it unworthy.”
     
    He pushed Lucanus towards his father, and said in a rough voice, “I have brought your boy home to you. He was in our garden, and he might have been smitten by a snake or a scorpion after sundown.”
     
    Aeneas was all confusion and abject fear. He had offended Diodorus, and he turned with anger on his son. “It is nothing to you that your mother was disturbed, and about to go searching for you in the darkness. It is nothing that you have affronted the noble tribune — ”
     
    “He did not affront me,” interrupted Diodorus. The light from the doorway slanted on Iris’ beautiful and distressed face. Diodorus yearned to put his hand consolingly on her shoulder. “The little Rubria is his playmate. I found him in the gardens, praying beneath her window, for she is ill. I have reason to thank him.” He watched Iris, and noticed that she had begun to smile in grateful relief. He said to the trembling Aeneas, and strove for an easy tone, “A most unusual boy, this of yours, Aeneas, and it has been a privilege to talk with him.” He hesitated. “My throat is dry. May I take a cup of wine with you?”
     
    Aeneas was again overcome. He could hardly believe his own ears. He looked at Lucanus with respect. This was his son of whom the tribune had spoken! And it was because of this son that the tribune had condescended to ask for wine in the house of his freedman. Aeneas was dazzled. He could only mumble and stand aside until Diodorus had strode into his house. He looked briefly and dumbly at Iris, but she had put her arm about her son’s neck and was leading him forward. Aeneas followed, his knees quaking. The tribune had brought the boy home, when he needed only to order him out of his gardens, or, if kindly disposed, might have sent a slave with him in the darkness!
     
    Diodorus had recovered his good humor. He stood in the small but not in the least humble room and surveyed it expansively. There were flowers in a bowl on the table, and flowers in the vases on the floor, which was of marble. The