“Mad fool! what are you saying…”
“What I was bound to say. You thought I was afraid; I am only proud. No, and if you were Cypris97 in person I should disdain you no less, in spite of every charm. Never will I touch the lips, that have been kissed by a buffoon – a slave."98
Domitia did not stir; she seemed paralyzed by the fury of this attack. – At last, however, she rose.
“You are very right, Quintus,” she said. “It was too much to expect. Go and sleep, and dream of your wedding. But the gods, you know, are envious. They often grant us joys in our dreams and deny the reality. But now, before you go, kneel to the Empress!” and as she spoke a stiletto flashed ominously in her hand. Quintus, however, had with equal swiftness drawn his dagger.
“Fair and gently!” he said drawing back. “The honor of being stabbed by the fair hand of Domitia is a temptation no doubt…” She colored and dropped the weapon.
“Leave me!” she said, going to lean against the balustrade. “I do not know what I am doing; my brain is reeling. Forgive me – forgive me!” Quintus made no reply, and casting a glance of furious hatred at him she hurried down the steps, glided through the gap in the brushwood into the deserted park, and vanished among the shrubs.
Quintus stood looking after her.
“One foe the more!” said he to himself. “Well, what does it matter? Either to be made an end of by the knife of an assassin – or to live on, my very soul sickened with it all… Pah!”
And he made his way homewards, singing a Greek drinking-song as he went.
CHAPTER IV
Next morning Quintus was up long before the sun, while in the atrium the slaves were still busy cleaning the walls and the mosaic pavement, so he lingered for a while in the peristyle. His eye dreamily watched the soft swaying of the trees in melancholy relief against the blue-green sky; light fleecy clouds floated in the transparent air, and here and there above his head a star still twinkled fitfully. Quintus sat on a bench with his head thrown back, for he was tired and over-excited; an unwonted restlessness had brought him out of bed. How calm and pure was this early gloaming! In Rome, so thought Quintus, there was something uncanny and dreary in the early morning – the grey of dawn came as the closing effect of a wild night of revelry. Here, on the hills of Baiae, the stars winked like kindly eyes and the twilight soothed the spirit! And yet, no; for here too was the great capital; here too were storms and unrest. Rome, that monstrous polypus, stretched its greedy arms out to the uttermost ends of the world, and even into the calmest and most peaceful solitudes. Even here, by the sea, wantonness had spread its glittering snares; here too duty and truth were forsworn, and intrigue and inhumanity held their orgies. Quintus thought of the tortured slave… That pale and pain-stricken face had sunk deep into his soul; strangely enough! for his eye had long been accustomed to such sights of anguish and horror. The bloody contests of gladiators had never roused him to any other interest than that in a public entertainment. But this particular picture forced itself on his memory, though – from the point of view of any Roman of distinction – it had no interesting features whatever, for of what account in the Roman Empire was a slave? And especially in the sight of Quintus, rich, handsome and brilliant? It was in short most strange – but that white, bearded face, with its lofty, unflinching expression never faded from his memory, and his inward eye found it impossible not to gaze upon it. Then, suddenly another figure stood side by side with it: The white-armed Cypris Domitia, the passion-stirred Empress. Here were pain, misery, silent abnegation – there were feverish desires and passions, reckless, greedy, all-absorbing selfishness… By the gods – there they stood before him – the slave and the imperial woman – both so distinct that he could have touched them as it seemed. – The slave had broken his bonds and put out his hand with a smile of beatitude, while the woman shrank away and her white arms writhed like snakes of marble. She threw herself on the earth, and her fair gold hair fell loose over the bleeding feet of the slave…
Quintus started up, the murmur of the fountain had lulled him to sleep, and now, as he rubbed his hand across his eyes, a woman’s figure was in fact before him, not so stately and tall as the moonlighted Domitia, but as fresh and sweet as a rose.
“Lucilia! Up so early?”
“I could not sleep and stole away softly from Claudia’s side. She is still asleep, for she came to bed very late. But you, my respected friend – what has brought you out before daybreak? You, the latest sleeper of all the sons of Rome?”
“I was just like you. I think the strong liquor we drank at supper last night…”
“A vain excuse,” said Lucilia. “When ever did good wine rob you of a night’s rest? Sooner could I believe that you were thinking of Cornelia!”
“What should make you think that?”
“Well, it is a natural inference. For what else are you her betrothed? To be sure you do not play the part with much zeal.”
“How so?”
“Well, do you not go to see Lycoris just as much now as ever you did?”
“Pah!”
“‘Pah!’ What need have you to say ‘Pah!’ in that way? Is that right? Is that horrid, shameless creature, who seems to turn all the men’s heads, a fit companion for a man who is betrothed? I know you love Cornelia – but this is a spiteful world, and supposing Cornelia were to learn…”
“Well, and if she did?” said Quintus smiling. “Is it a crime to frequent gay society, to see a few leaps and turns of Gades dancers and to eat stewed muraenae?99 Is there anything atrocious in fireworks or flute-playing?”
“How eloquent you can be! You might almost make black seem white. But I abide by my words; it is most unbecoming, and if you would but hear reason you would give this woman up.”
“But pray believe me, there never was a pretty girl for whom I cared less than for Lycoris.”
“Indeed! and that is why you are as constantly in her house as a client in that of his patron."100
“The comparison is not flattering.”
“But exact. Why should you frequent her house so constantly, if you are so indifferent to her?”
“Child, you do not understand such matters. Her house is the centre of all the wit and talent in Rome. Everything that is interesting or remarkable meets there; it is in her rooms that Martial101 utters his most pregnant jests, and Statius reads his finest verses. Everyone who lays any claim to talent or wit, whether statesmen or courtiers, knights or senators, uses the atrium of Lycoris as a rendezvous. Last autumn I even met Asprenas102 the consul there. Where such men as these are to be seen, Quintus Claudius, at three and twenty, may certainly be allowed to go.”
“Quite the contrary,” cried Lucilia. “If you had grey hair, like Nonius Asprenas, I would not waste words on the matter. But as it is, the Gaulish Circe will end by falling in love with you, and then you will be past praying for.” Quintus looked gaily at the girl’s smiling, mocking face.
“You mean just the reverse,” he said. “For I know you regard me as far from dangerous. Well! I can bear even that blow.”
“That is your new mood! There is no touching you in any way. If you had only half as much constancy of mind as Aurelius!”
“Ah! you like him then?”
“Particularly. Do you know it would be delightful if he could remain here a little longer – I mean for six or eight days. Then he could travel with us to Rome.”
“Indeed?” said Quintus significantly.
“Now,