Drusus stood looking in blank dismay from one to the other of the little company.  Claudia had started to speak, but closed, her lips without uttering a word.  Lentulus faced him, hot, flushed, and with a cynical smile of delight, at the infliction of mental torture, playing over his face.  Cornelia had dropped down upon a chair, buried her pretty face in her hands, and was sobbing as if her heart would break.  It was a moment Drusus would not soon forget.  The whole scene in the atrium was stamped upon his memory; the drops of the fountain seemed frozen in mid-air; the rioting satyr on the fresco appeared to be struggling against the limitations of paint and plaster to complete his bound; he saw Cornelia lift her head and begin to address him, but what she said was drowned by the buzzing and swirl which unsteadied the young man’s entire faculties.  Drusus felt himself turning hot and cold, and in semi-faintness he caught at a pillar, and leaned upon it.  He felt numbed mentally and physically.  Then, by a mental reaction, his strong, well-balanced nature reasserted itself.  His head cleared, his muscles relaxed their feverish tension, he straightened himself and met the cool leer of Lentulus with a glance stern and high; such a glance as many a Livian before him had darted on foe in Senate or field of battle.

“Lucius Cornelius,” said he, his voice perfectly under command, “do you propose to defy law and right and refuse me the hand of your niece, unless I do your will?”

Lentulus thought that in this unimpassioned speech he detected the premonitions of a capitulation on the part of Drusus, and with a voice of ill-timed persuasion, replied, “Be reasonable, Drusus; you have everything to gain and nothing to lose by not thwarting my wishes.”

“Your wishes!” retorted Drusus, with a menacing step forward.  “Your wishes!  You are consul-designate.  You have the Senate, you have your tool, Pompeius, you have the gangs of gladiators and street ruffians and all the machinery of your political clubs to invoke to defy the law!  I grant it; but though you deny me Cornelia, though by your machinations you bring me any other loss or shame, the grandson of the murdered Marcus Drusus will do that which is right in his own eyes, and accept no mandate from you or any man, against his will!”

“Cornelia,” cried Claudia, infinitely distressed, “speak to Quintus, reason with him, implore him, pray him not to resist the requests of your uncle.”

“Yes, girl!” said Lentulus, savagely, turning livid with sheer rage, “use all your arts on that graceless would-be conspirator now, or see his face no more!”

But Cornelia interposed in a most summary and unexpected manner.  Her face was very white; her nails pressed into her smooth arms, her breath came thick and spasmodically, and her eyes flamed with the intense passion of a strong spirit thoroughly aroused.

“Go, Quintus,” she cried, with a strained, loud voice, “go, and never see my face again, until my uncle repents of his cruel madness!  He is master here; only woe will come from defying him.  Do not anger him further; depart.”