To a man, the business of
whose whole life was to procure for himself a heritage of unalloyed
pleasure, whose sole occupation was to pamper that refined sensuality
which the habits of a life had made the very material of his heart, by
diffusing luxury and awakening smiles wherever he turned his steps, the
mere mental disquietude attending the ill-success of his intrusion into
Numerian's dwelling, was as painful in its influence, as the bitterest
remorse that could have afflicted a more highly-principled mind. He
now, therefore, instituted the search after Antonina, and expressed his
contrition to her father, from a genuine persuasion that nothing but the
completest atonement for the error he had committed, could restore to
him that luxurious tranquility, the loss of which had, as he had himself
expressed it, rendered him deaf to the deliberations of the Senate, and
regardless of the invasion of the Goths.
'Tell me,' he continued, after a pause, 'whither has Ulpius betaken
himself? It is necessary that he should be discovered.
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