And there were pleasures enough for Cornelia if she would join therein.  Lentulus had ordered his freedmen not to deny her amusements; anything, in fact, that would divert her from her morbid infatuation for Drusus.  The consul-designate had indeed reached the conclusion that his niece was suffering some serious mental derangement, or she would not thus continue to pursue a profitless passion, obviously impossible of fulfilment.  So Cornelia had every chance to make herself a centre to those gay pleasure-seekers who were still at Baiae; for the summer season was a little past, and all but confirmed or fashionable invalids and professional vacationers were drifting back to Rome.  For a time all went merrily enough.  Just sufficient of the Lucius Ahenobarbus affair had come to the Baiaeans to make Cornelia the object of a great amount of curiosity.  When she invited a select number of the pleasure-seekers to her dinner parties, she had the adulation and plaudits of every guest, and plenty of return favours.  Lucius Ahenobarbus soon had a score of hot rivals; and Cornelia’s pretty face was chipped on more than one admirer’s seal ring.  But presently it began to be said that the niece of the consul-designate was an extremely stoical and peculiar woman; she did not enjoy freedom which the very air of Baiae seemed to render inevitable.  She never lacked wit and vivacity, but there was around her an air of restraint and cold modesty that was admirable in every way—­only it would never do in Baiae.  And so Cornelia, without ceasing to be admired, became less courted; and presently, quite tiring of the butterfly life, was thrown back more and more on herself and on her books.  This did not disturb her.  A levee or a banquet had never given her perfect pleasure; and it was no delight to know that half the women of Baiae hated her with a perfect jealousy.  Cornelia read and studied, now Greek, now Latin; and sometimes caught herself half wishing to be a man and able to expound a cosmogony, or to decide the fate of empires by words flung down from the rostrum.  Then finally Agias came bringing Artemisia, who, as has been related, was introduced—­by means of some little contriving—­into the familia as a new serving-maid.  Such Artemisia was in name; but Cornelia, whose gratitude to Agias had known no bounds, took the little thing into her heart, and determined to devote herself to instructing an innocence that must not continue too long, despite its charming naivete.

Thus the days had passed for Cornelia.  But only a little while after Agias left for Rome,—­with a very large packet of letters for Drusus,—­the pleasant, self-created world of fantasy, that had given Cornelia some portion of happiness, vanished.  Like a clap of thunder from a cloudless sky Lucius Ahenobarbus suddenly arrived in Baiae.  He was tired of Rome, which was still very hot and uncomfortable.  He loathed politics, they were stupid.  He had lost a boon companion when Publius Gabinius was driven into outlawry.  Marcus Laeca was too deeply in debt to give any more dinners.  Pratinas was fled to Egypt.  And so he had come to Baiae, to harass Cornelia by his presence; to gibe at her; and assure her that her uncle was more determined than ever that she should marry him—­say and do what she might.