“How extremely unfortunate!” sighed Claudia, looking dreadfully bored.

“If that was all I had to tell you,” snapped back Lentulus, “I would not have disturbed your ladyship’s repose.  But you must be so indulgent as to listen.”

“Well?” said Claudia, yawning again and settling herself.

“Your late husband left some little property,” began the other.

“Yes, to be sure; oh! my poor Caius!” and Claudia began to sob and wipe away the tears.

“And this property I have involved,” continued Lentulus, driving straight ahead and never heeding the widow’s display of emotions.  “It will be impossible for me to clear away the encumbrances for some little time.”

Claudia was excited now.  She sprang up from her cushions and cried, or rather screamed:—­

“Brute!  Robber of orphans and widows!  Heartless wretch!  Have you pledged the slender fortune Caius left me, and the dowry of my poor dear Cornelia?” And her voice sank into hoarseness, and she began to sob once more.

Lentulus regarded her with vexation and contempt. “Mehercle! what a fuss you are making!  The deed is done, and there’s no helping it.  I came here, not to offer excuses, but to state the facts.  You may call me what you please; I had to do it, or lose the consulship.  Now look the matter in the face.  You must contract no more debts; I can’t discharge the old ones.  Live as reasonably as you can.”

“And no more nice dinners?  No more visits to Baiae?” groaned the lady, rocking to and fro.

“Yes, yes,” broke in her brother-in-law, sharply, “I can still raise enough to meet all ordinary expenses.  If I let down in my household, my creditors would see I was pinched, and begin to pluck me.  I can weather the storm.  But look here:  Cornelia must have an end with that young Drusus.  I can never pay her dowry, and would not have him for a nephew-in-law if I could.”

“Cornelia break off with Drusus?” and Claudia stopped whimpering, and sat staring at Lentulus with astonished eyes.  To tell the truth she had always liked the young Livian, and thought her daughter was destined for a most advantageous match.

“Certainly, my dear Claudia,” said the consul-elect, half relieved to change what had been a very awkward subject; “I can assure you that Quintus is far from being a proper and worthy man for a husband for your daughter.  I have heard very evil reports of him while in the city.  He has cast in his lot with that gang of knavish Caesarians centring around Marcus Antonius, Caelius, and that Caius Sallustius[77] whom our excellent censors have just ejected from the Senate, because of his evil living and Caesarian tendencies.  Do I need to say more of him?  A worthless, abandoned, shameless profligate!”

  [77] Sallust, the well-known historian.

Claudia had a little sense of humour; and when Lentulus was working himself up into a righteous rage over the alleged misdoings of Drusus, she interrupted:—­