And with this remark Domitius closed the matter, and Lucius was actually delighted at the situation.  What his father had said had been true enough; half, nay, nearly all, Rome lived in the manner Domitius had guardedly proposed for his son and intended daughter-in-law.  Marriage was becoming more and more a mere formality, something that was kept up as the ancient state Pagan worship was kept up by the remnants of old-time superstition, and as a cloak to hide a multitude of sins.  Fifty-nine years before, the consul Metellus Numidicus had declaimed, “Quirites, we would fain be free from all this annoyance (of marriage); but since nature has so brought it about that it is neither possible to live pleasantly with our wives nor by any means to live (as a race) without them, we ought to consider the welfare of the future rather than the mere passing pleasure of the present.”  And ever since that day Romans had been striving desperately to make the married state as endurable as possible; usually by reducing the importance of lawful wedlock to a minimum.

Of course the announcement of the informal betrothal was soon spread over Rome.  The contracting parties were in the very highest life, and everybody declared that the whole affair was a political deal between Lentulus Crus and Domitius.  It was commonly reported, too, how Cornelia had broken with Drusus, and every one remarked that if the young man had cared to enforce her father’s will in the courts, his claim to her hand and fortune would be valid unless—­and here most people exchanged sly winks, for they knew the power of Domitius and Lentulus Crus over a jury.

And how had Cornelia borne it—­she at whom Herennia had stared in amazement, when that “dear friend” discovered the friendship the other was displaying to Lucius Ahenobarbus?  Cornelia had received the announcement very quietly, one might almost say resignedly.  She had one great hope and consolation to support her.  They would not force her to marry Lucius Ahenobarbus until Drusus was dead or had reached the age of five-and-twenty.  The marriage formula with Ahenobarbus once uttered, while Quintus lived, and by no possibility, save by an open spoliation that would have stirred even calloused Rome, could Lucius touch a sesterce of his intended victim’s property.  Cornelia’s hope now, strangely enough, was in the man she regarded as the most consummate villain in the world, Pratinas.  Ahenobarbus might have his debts paid by his father, and forego risk and crime if he did not absolutely need Drusus’s fortune; but Pratinas, she knew, must have planned to secure rich pickings of his own, and if Ahenobarbus married permanently, all these were lost; and the Greeks never turned back or let another turn back, when there was a fortune before them.  It was a fearful sort of confidence.  Drusus had been warned promptly by Agias.  Old Mamercus had straightway taken every precaution, and forced his foster son to put himself in a sort of