Part 22 (1/2)

”Dea Flavia, what is thine age?”

She looked up at him, smiling and puzzled.

”Some twenty years, great Caesar,” she replied, ”but of a truth I had not kept count.”

”Twenty years?” he retorted, ”then 'tis high time that I chose a husband for thee.”

This time she looked up at him boldly, and although in her glance there was all the respect due to the immortal Caesar, yet was there no show of humility in her att.i.tude as she threw back the heavy ma.s.ses of her hair and drew up her slender figure to its full stately height.

”Was it to tell me this,” she asked simply, ”that the greatest of Caesars sought his servant's house to-day?”

”In part,” he rejoined curtly, ”and I would hear thine answer.”

”My lord has not deigned to ask a question?”

”Art prepared to accept the husband whom I, thine Emperor will choose for thee?”

”In all things do I give thee honour and reverence, O Caesar,” she replied, ”but----”

”But what?”

”But I had no thought of marriage.”

”No thought of marriage!” he retorted roughly as, unable to sit still, hara.s.sed by rage and doubt, he once more started on that restless walk of his up and down the room.

She watched him with great wondering eyes. That something serious lay behind his questionings was of course obvious. He had not paid her this matutinal visit for the sole purpose of pa.s.sing the time of day; and she did not like this strange mood of his nor his reference to a topic over which he had not worried her hitherto.

In truth the thought of marriage had never entered her head, even though Licinia--with constant garrulousness--had oft made covert allusions to that coming time. She knew--for it had been instilled into her from every side ever since her father had left her under the tutelage of the Caesar--that she must eventually obey him, if one day he desired that she should marry.

A young patrician girl would never dream of rebellion against the power of a father or a guardian, and when that guardian was the Caesar himself and the girl was of the imperial house, the very thought of disobedience savoured of sacrilege.

But hitherto that question had loomed ahead in Dea Flavia's dreams of the future only as very shadowy and vague. She had never given a single thought to any of the young men who paid her homage, and their efforts at winning her favours had only caused her to smile.

She had felt herself to be unconquerable, even unattainable, and Caligula, before this mad frenzy had fully seized hold of him, had--in his own brutish way--indulged her in this, allowing her to lead her own life and secretly laughing at the machinations that went on around him to obtain the most coveted matrimonial prize in Rome.

Now suddenly this happy state of things was to come to an end; her freedom, on which she looked as her most precious possession, was to be taken roughly from her. One of the men whom she had despised, one of that set of libertines, of idle voluptuaries who had dangled round her skirts whilst casting covetous eyes upon her fortune, was to become her master, her supreme lord, and she--a slave to his desires and to his pa.s.sions.

Strangely enough the thought of it just now was peculiarly horrible to her--the thought of what the Caesar's wish might mean--the inevitableness of it all nauseated her until she felt sick and faint, and the walls of the room began to swing round her so that she had to steady herself on her feet with a mighty effort of will, lest she should fall.

She knew the Caesar well enough to realise that if he had absolutely set his mind on her marriage nothing would make him swerve from the thought.

If he once desired a thing he would never rest night or day until his wish had been fulfilled.

Men and women of Rome knew that. Patricians and plebs, senators and slaves, had died horrible deaths because the Caesar had demanded and they had merely thought to disobey.

Therefore it was with wide-open, terror-filled eyes that she watched that tyrannical master in his restless walk up and down the room.

Outside greater darkness had gathered, heavy clouds obscured the light, and the gorgeous figure of the Caesar now and then vanished into the dark angles of the room, reappearing a moment later like some threatening ghoul that comes and goes, blown by the wind which foretells the coming storm.

After a while Caligula paused in his walk and stood close beside her, looking as straight as he could into her pale face.