Part 15 (1/2)

”Now,” she demanded of Calvaster, ”point out which one you bribed.”

Calvaster remained motionless and mute.

”Hurt him, Guntello,” said Brinnaria.

Guntello applied a few simple twists and squeezes, such as schoolboys of all climes employ on their victims.

Calvaster yielded at once and indicated one of the suspects.

”Throw him out, Guntello,” said Brinnaria.

When Guntello returned he cheerfully inquired, with the easy a.s.surance of an indulged favorite.

”Shall I kill Tranio, Mistress?”

”No!” said Brinnaria viciously. ”I wouldn't have a toad killed on the word of that contemptible scoundrel. Give Tranio a moderate beating and hand him over to Olynthides to be sold at auction without a character.”

Her survey of her former home and her selection of the ornaments, pictures, statues, articles of furniture and other objects which she desired reserved for herself she completed with an air less of melancholy than of puzzled thought.

She was off duty for all of that day and night and was to dine with Flexinna and Vocco. In the course of the pestilence they had inherited a magnificent abode on the Esquiline. In particular it had a private bath with a large swimming-pool. The Vestals were the only ladies in Rome who might not enjoy the magnificent public baths, to which all Roman society flocked every afternoon, somewhat as we moderns throng a beach at a fas.h.i.+onable seaside resort. Brinnaria, who loved swimming, felt the deprivation keenly. The Atrium had luxurious baths, but no swimming-pool. Whenever Brinnaria dined with Flexinna she particularly enjoyed the swim the two always took together before dinner. On that afternoon, while they were revelling in the water, Brinnaria told Flexinna of her adventure.

”I can't conjecture,” she said, ”what motive brought him there. I have been racking my brains about it ever since it happened and it is an enigma to me.”

”No riddle to me,” Flexinna declared. ”It's as c-c-clear as d-d-daylight.”

”If you are so sure,” said Brinnaria, ”explain. I have no guess even.”

”Why,” expounded Flexinna, ”he was there to c-c-collect evidence against you. He hates you because you wouldn't marry him and he is t-t-tenaciously resolved to be revenged. He is on the lookout for anything that might d-d-discredit you. He hoped to spy on an interview b-b-between you and Almo, for he surmised that you would arrange to have Almo meet you in the empty house!”

”The nasty beast!” cried Brinnaria, shocked. ”How dare he?”

”Oh, b-b-be sensible,” Flexinna admonished her. ”You know the k-k-kind he is. He's b-b-bound to impute to everybody what he would d-d-do in their p-p-place. Any man under the same circ.u.mstances would jump at the same suspicions.”

”But why?” queried Brinnaria, bewildered and angry.

”Think a minute,” said Flexinna. ”To suspect all women is a c-c-convention, almost an axiom, with most men. All men like C-C-Calvaster a.s.sume that every married woman is interested in some man b-b-besides her husband, or in almost any man, and if married women are under suspicion, on the a.s.sumption that one husband is not enough, of c-c-course you Vestals, who haven't even a husband, are doubly under suspicion.”

”Bah!” snarled Brinnaria, ”you make me cross!”

”Facts are facts,” Flexinna summed up.

Brinnaria did not retort. She had climbed out of the tank and was seated on the edge, the drops streaming off her in rivulets, watching the ripples her toes' made in the water.

”Facts are facts,” she echoed, ”and conjectures are merely conjectures; what is more, conjectures ought to have some basis in fact. You a.s.sert, as if you know it to be true, that Calvaster expected Almo to meet me to-day. But Almo is at Falerii.”

”No, he's not,” Flexinna retorted; ”he's b-b-been in t-t-town t-t-ten d-d-days and has had the old house on the C-C-Carinae reopened. He's settling d-d-down to live in Rome.”

Brinnaria flushed.

”I think,” she said, scrambling to her feet, ”that he might have had enough consideration for me to stay in the country.”