In the gallery the Emperor encountered the Empress Eusebia Aurelia. She was a mature woman with a pale and weary face, delicate and noble features, a mischievous raillery sometimes kindling her keen eyes. Crossing her hands on the _omophorium_ covered with sapphires and heart-shaped rubies, the Empress bowed profoundly and pronounced the habitual morning salutation:
"I am come for the joy of beholding you, O spouse well-beloved of the Lord! How has your Holiness deigned to sleep?"
Then, at a sign from her, the attendant maids of honour drew to a distance and she murmured sweetly, in a simpler and sincerer tone--
"Julian is to be received by you to-day. Receive him kindly! Don't believe these spying reports. He is a poor innocent boy. God will repay you, sire, if you grant him favour."
"You ask favour to him as a favour to yourself?"
The husband and wife exchanged a rapid glance.
"I know," she said, "you always have confidence in me; let it be so now. Julian is a faithful slave. Don't refuse me.... Be kind to him...."
And she gratified him with one of those smiles which hitherto had wielded irresistible power over the heart of Constantius.
In the portico, which was separated from the great hall by hangings (behind which the Emperor used to ensconce himself to hear what was going on at the councils), a monk, wearing a cruciform tonsure and in a hooded robe of coarsest drugget, came near. It was Julian.
"I salute my benefactor, the triumphant and glorious Emperor Augustus Constantius. May your Holiness pardon me!"
Julian's cousin magnanimously extended his hand to Julian's lips. Julian kissed the hand dyed with the blood of his father, of his brother, of all his relatives. Then he rose erect, pale and with sparkling eyes fixed upon his enemy. He gripped the handle of a poniard hidden under his robe. The grey eyes of the Emperor lighted with pride and cautious malice, seldom dropping their scrutiny. He was a head shorter than Julian, large-shouldered, solidly-built, and bandy-legged like an old cavalry soldier. The tight brown skin over his temples was disagreeably glossy. The thin lips were severely closed with the expression of folk that set order and punctuality above all other virtues--the expression of a pedant and a schoolmaster.