Part 13 (1/2)
”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 unimpa.s.sioned 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 pa.s.sion 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.”
”Depart?” burst from Drusus.
”Depart!” replied Cornelia, desperately; ”if you stay I shall go mad.
I shall beg you to yield,--which would be base of me; and if you heard my prayers, it would be more base in you.”
”Fool,” shouted Lentulus, ”don't you know you will be the first I'll mark for slaughter in the next proscription? You, mistress, go to your room, if you cannot keep a civil tongue! And you, sir, get you gone, unless you wish the slaves to cast you out.”
”Farewell, Cornelia!” gasped the young man; and he turned his back, and started out into the colonnade.
”Oh, Quintus, return!” shrieked Claudia, wringing her hands. ”All the G.o.ds blast you!” muttered Lentulus, quivering with fury; then he shouted at the top of his shrill, harsh voice: ”My enemies are my enemies. You are warned. Take care!”
”And do you take warning! A Livian never forgets! _Mars regat!_ Let War rule!” cried Drusus, turning at the vestibule, and brandis.h.i.+ng a knotted fist. Lentulus stared after him, half furious, half intimidated. But Claudia glanced back into the room from the just emptied doorway, and gave a scream.
”The servants! Help! Water! Cornelia has fainted!”
III
Drusus strode down the long avenue of shade trees. The gardener stared after him, as the young man went by, his face knitted with a scowl of combined pain and fury, with never a word in reply to the rustic's kindly salutation.
”_Papae!_”[83] muttered the man, ”what has befallen Master Quintus? Has he fallen out with her ladys.h.i.+p?”
[83] ”Strange! Marvellous!”
Drusus kept on, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, until he found himself past the boundary stone between his own estate and that of the Lentuli. Then he stopped and pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead. It was damp with an unhealthy sweat. His hands and frame were quivering as if in an ague. He seated himself on a stone bench by the roadway, and tried to collect his faculties.
”Bear up, Drusus; be a Livian, as you boast yourself,” he declaimed frantically to himself. ”Cornelia shall still be yours! All things are possible to one who is young and strong, with a clear conscience!”
If this self-debate did not actually stimulate cheerfulness, it at least revived the embers of hope; and Drusus found himself trying to look the situation fairly in the face.
”You have thrown away your right to marry the dearest, loveliest, and n.o.blest girl in the world,” he reflected bitterly. ”You have made an implacable enemy of one of the most powerful men of the state. In short, your happiness is gone, and perhaps your life is in danger--and for what? A dream of reform which can never be realized? A mad conspiracy to overthrow the commonwealth? Is Caesar to be saviour or despot? For what have you sacrificed yourself?”
Lentulus, he knew perfectly well, was really above law. No jury would ever convict the leader of the Senate party. Drusus could never contract lawful marriage with Cornelia, so long as her guardian withheld consent. And for one moment he regretted of his determination, of his defiance. Then came reaction. Drusus called up all his innate pride, all the strength of his n.o.bler inspirations.
”I have set my face toward that which is honourable and right,” cried Drusus to his own soul; ”I will not doubt. Whether there be G.o.ds, I cannot tell. But this I know, the wise and good have counted naught dear but virtues; and toward this end I will strive.”
And by a strong effort at self-command, he forced himself to arise from the bench and walk back to his own estate, and soon he was pouring the whole story into the sympathetic ears of Mamercus, Pausanias, and other worthy retainers.
The scene that had taken place at the villa of the Lentuli, soon was reported through all the adjacent farms; for several slaves had been the mute witnesses of the angry colloquy, and had not been slow to publish the report. The familia of Drusus was in a tumult of indignation. All the brawny Germans and Africans whom the young master had released from the slave-prison, and had since treated with kindness, listened with no unfavourable ear to the proposal which t.i.tus Mamercus--more valorous than discreet--was laying before them: to arm and attack Lentulus in his own villa, and so avenge their lord in a summary fas.h.i.+on.
But the elder Mamercus dashed the martial ambitions of his son.