He is master, and has only to say the word.
Such may have been the thought at the moment in his mind.

He was standing with folded arms, looking upon the scene in the manner of a man debating with himself.

Young, handsome, rich, but recently from the patrician circles of Roman society, it is easy to think of the world besetting him with appeals not to give more to onerous duty or ambition attended with outlawry and danger.

We can even imagine the arguments with which he was pressed; the hopelessness of contention with Caesar; the uncertainty veiling everything connected with the King and his coming; the ease, honors, state, purchasable like goods in market; and, strongest of all, the sense newly acquired of home, with friends to make it delightful.

Only those who have been wanderers long desolate can know the power there was in the latter appeal.
Let us add now, the world--always cunning enough of itself; always whispering to the weak, Stay, take thine ease; always presenting the sunny side of life--the world was in this instance helped by Ben-Hur's companion.
"Were you ever at Rome ?" he asked.
"No," Esther replied.
"Would you like to go ?" "I think not." "Why ?" "I am afraid of Rome," she answered, with a perceptible tremor of the voice.
He looked at her then--or rather down upon her, for at his side she appeared little more than a child.