At last, however, she was obliged to put a good face on the matter, for the Empress herself expressed so decidedly her wish to take Balbilla with her to the Nile, that any resistance would have been unduteous.

Still; in her secret heart, she could not but confess to herself that her high-spirited and wilful foster-child--for so she loved to call Balbilla--would undoubtedly have carried out her purpose without the Empress' intervention.
Balbilla had come to the palace, as the reader knows, to sit for her bust.
When Selene was passing by the screen which concealed her playfellow and his work from her gaze, the worthy matron had fallen gently asleep on a couch, and the sculptor was exerting all his zeal to convince the noble damsel that the size to which her hair was dressed was an exaggeration, and that the super-encumbrance of such a mass must disfigure the effect of the delicate features of her face.

He implored her to remember in how simple a style the great Athenian masters, at the best period of the plastic arts, had taught their beautiful models to dress their hair, and requested her to do her own hair in that manner next day, and to come to him before she allowed her maid to put a single lock through the curling-tongs; for to-day, as he said, the pretty little ringlets would fly back into shape, like the spring of a fibula when the pin was bent back.

Balbilla contradicted him with gay vivacity, protested against his desire to play the part of lady's maid, and defended her style of hair-dressing on the score of fashion.
"But the fashion is ugly, monstrous, a pain to one's eyes!" cried Pollux.

"Some vain Roman lady must have invented it, not to make herself beautiful, but to be conspicuous." "I hate the idea of being conspicuous by my appearance," answered Balbilla.