said that Dumnorix would shortly start with a band of gladiators for some local festival at Anagnia, a little beyond Praeneste; and on the way back, if nothing went amiss, the prearranged programme could be carried out.  Some pretext must be found for keeping Drusus on his estate at the time when Dumnorix would march past it, and that task could be confided to Phaon, Lucius’s freedman, a sly fox entirely after his patron’s own heart.

Cornelia, to whom the dinner-party at Favonius’s house began as a dreary enough tragedy, before long discovered that it was by no means more easy to suck undiluted sorrow than unmixed gladness out of life.  It gratified her to imagine the rage and dismay of the young exquisite whose couch was beside her chair,[93] when he should learn how completely he had been duped.  Then, too, Lucius Ahenobarbus had a voluble flow of polite small talk, and he knew how to display his accomplishments to full advantage.  He had a fair share of wit and humour; and when he fancied that Cornelia was not impervious to his advances, he became more agreeable and more ardent.  Once or twice Cornelia frightened herself by laughing without conscious forcing.  Yet it was an immense relief to her when the banquet was over, and the guests—­for Favonius had ordered that none should be given enough wine to be absolutely drunken—­called for their sandals and litters and went their ways.

  [93] Women sat at Roman banquets, unless the company was of a
  questionable character.

“And you, O Adorable, Calypso, Circe, Nausicaa, Medea,—­what shall I call you?—­you will not be angry if I call to see you to-morrow?” said Ahenobarbus, smiling as he parted from Cornelia.

“If you come,” was her response, “I shall not perhaps order the slaves to pitch you out heels over head.”

“Ah!  That is a guarded assent, indeed,” laughed Lucius, “but farewell, pulcherrima!"[94]

  [94] Most beautiful.

Cornelia that night lay down and sobbed herself to sleep.  Her mother had congratulated her on her brilliant social success at the dinner-party, and had praised her for treating Lucius Ahenobarbus as she had.

“You know, my dear,” the worthy woman had concluded, “that since it has seemed necessary to break off with Drusus, a marriage with Lucius would be at once recommended by your father’s will, and in many ways highly desirable.”

II

Only a very few days later Lucius Ahenobarbus received a message bidding him come to see his father at the family palace on the Palatine.  Lucius had almost cut himself clear from his relations.  He had his own bachelor apartments, and Domitius had been glad to have him out of the way.  A sort of fiction existed that he was legally under the patria potestas,[95] and could only have debts and assets on his father’s responsibility, but as a matter of fact his parent seldom paid him any attention; and only called on him