But even in the humblest garb he would have been a handsome--a splendid youth, and his mother's pride! When he left home there was still a smack of the provincial about him; but now every kind of awkwardness had vanished, and wherever he might go--even in the Capital, he was certain to be one of the first to attract observation and approval.
And what had he not known in his city experience?
The events of half a century had followed each other with intoxicating rapidity in the course of the thirty months he had spent there.

The greater the excitement, the greater the pleasure was the watchword of his time; and though he had rioted and revelled on the shores of the Bosphorus if ever man did, still the pleasures of feasting and of love, or of racing with his own victorious horses--all of which he had enjoyed there to the full--were as child's play compared with the nervous tension to which he had been strung by the appalling events he had witnessed on all sides.

How petty was the excitement of an Alexandrian horse-race! Whether Timon or Ptolemy or he himself should win--what did it matter?
It was a fine thing no doubt to carry off the crown in the circus at Byzantium, but there were other and soul-stirring crises there beyond those which were bound up with horses or chariots.

There a throne was the prize, and might cost the blood and life of thousands!--What did a man bring home from the churches in the Nile valley?
But if he crossed the threshold of St.Sophia's in Constantinople he often might have his blood curdled, or bring home--what matter ?--bleeding wounds, or even be carried home--a corpse.
Three times had he seen the throne change masters.

An emperor and an empress had been stripped of the purple and mutilated before his eyes.
Aye, then and there he had had real and intense excitement to thrill him to the marrow and quick.