So passed the winter and the spring and early summer months; and, however hot and parched might be the city under the burning sun, there was coolness and refreshment in the gardens of the palace.

With it all, however, Cornelia began to wax restive.  It is no light thing to command one’s self to remain quiet in Sybaritic ease.  More and more she began to wish that this butterfly existence, this passive basking in the sun of indolent luxury, would come to an end.  She commenced again to wish that she were a man, with the tongue of an orator, the sword of a soldier, able to sway senates and to lead legions.  Pothinus finally discovered that he was having some difficulty in keeping his cage-bird contented.  The eunuch had entertained great expectations of being able to win credit and favour with the conquerors among the Romans by delivering over Cornelia safe and sound either to Lentulus Crus or Quintus Drusus.  Now he began to fear that Pratinas had advised him ill; that Cornelia and Fabia were incapable of intriguing in Cleopatra’s favour, and by his “protection at the palace” he was only earning the enmity of his noble guests.  But it was too late to retrace his steps, and he accordingly plied Cornelia with so many additional attentions, presents, and obsequious flatteries, that she grew heartily disgusted and repined even more over her present situation.

Bad news came, which added to her discomfort.  Caesar had been driven from his lines at Dyrrachium.  He had lost a great many men.  If the Pompeian sources of information were to be believed, he was now really a negligible military factor, and the war was practically over.  The tidings fell on Cornelia’s soul like lead.  She knew perfectly well that the defeat of the Caesarians would mean the death of Quintus Drusus.  Her uncle and the Domitii, father and son, would be all powerful, and they never forgave an enmity.  As for herself—­but she did not think much thereon; if Drusus was slain or executed, she really had very little to live for, and there were many ways of getting out of the world.  For the first time since the memorable night of the raid on Baiae, she went about with an aching heart.  Fabia, too, suffered, but, older and wiser, comforted Cornelia not so much by what she might say, by way of extending hopes, as by the warm, silent contact of her pure, noble nature.  Monime and Berenice were grieved that their friends were so sad, and used a thousand gentle arts to comfort them.  Cornelia bore up more bravely because of the sympathy—­she did not have to endure her burden alone, as at Rome and Baiae; but, nevertheless, for her the days crept slowly.

And then out of the gloom came the dazzling brightness.  A Rhodian merchantman came speeding into the haven with news.  “Is Caesar taken?” cried the inquisitive crowd on the quay, as the vessel swung up to her mooring.  “Is Pompeius not already here?” came back from the deck.  And in a twinkling it was all over the city:  in the Serapeium, in the Museum, under the colonnades, in the factories, in the palace.  “Pompeius’s army has been destroyed.  The Magnus barely escaped with his life.  Lucius Domitius is slain.  Caesar is master of the world!”