Quintus smiled in turn, and kissing her, said:  “Can you trust me?  I hope so.  And be assured I will do all I may, not to quarrel with your uncle.  And now away with all this silly serious talk!  What a pity for Mamercus to have been so gloomy as to introduce it!  What a pity I must go to Rome to-morrow, and leave this dear old place!  But then, I have to see my aunt Fabia, and little Livia, the sister I haven’t met since she was a baby.  And while I am in Rome I will do something else—­can you guess?” Cornelia shook her head.  “Carpenters, painters, masons!  I will send them out to make this old villa fresh and pretty for some one who, I hope, will come here to live in about a month.  No, don’t run away,” for Cornelia was trying to hide her flushed face by flight; “I have something else to get—­a present for your own dear self.  What shall it be?  I am rich; cost does not matter.”

Cornelia pursed her lips in thought.

“Well,” she remarked, “if you could bring me out a pretty boy, not too old or too young, one that was honest and quick-witted, he would be very convenient to carry messages to you, and to do any little business for me.”

Cornelia asked for a slave-boy just as she might have asked for a new pony, with that indifference to the question of humanity which indicated that the demarcation between a slave and an animal was very slight in her mind.

“Oh! that is nothing,” said Drusus; “you shall have the handsomest and cleverest in all Rome.  And if Mamercus complains that I am extravagant in remodelling the house, let him remember that his wonderful Caesar, when a young man, head over ears in debt, built an expensive villa at Aricia, and then pulled it down to the foundations and rebuilt on an improved plan.  Farewell, Sir Veteran, I will take Cornelia home, and then come back for that dinner which I know the cook has made ready with his best art.”

Arm in arm the young people went away down the avenue of shade trees, dim in the gathering twilight.  Mamercus stood gazing after them.

“What a pity!  What a pity!” he repeated to himself, “that Sextus and Caius are not alive; how they would have rejoiced in their children!  Why do the fates order things as they do?  Only let them be kind enough to let me live until I hold another little Drusus on my knee, and tell him of the great battles!  But the Gods forbid, Lentulus should find out speedily that his lordship has gone over to Caesar; or there will be trouble enough for both his lordship and my lady.  The consul-elect is a stubborn, bitter man.  He would be terribly offended to give his niece in marriage to a political enemy.  But it may all turn out well.  Who knows?” And he went into the house.

Chapter II

The Upper Walks of Society

I

It was very early in the morning.  From the streets, far below, a dull rumbling was drifting in at the small, dim windows.  On the couch, behind some faded curtains, a man turned and yawned, grunted and rubbed his eyes.  The noise of the heavy timber, stone, and merchandise wagons hastening out of the city before daybreak,[25] jarred the room, and made sleep almost impossible.  The person awakened swore quietly to himself in Greek.