Part 52 (1/2)

”To make our submission to the Caesar,” she said simply, ”those of us at least who are not afraid of his wrath. For the others there is still time to seek a safe retreat far away from Rome.”

”But this is monstrous!” cried Hortensius Martius, suddenly jumping to his feet and beginning to pace up and down the room in an outburst of impotent wrath. ”This is miserable, cowardly, abject! What? Would ye allow that stranger, that son of slaves, to thwart your plans by his treachery? Are we naughty children that can thus be sent, well-whipped and whining to bed? Up, my lords, this is not the end! Caesar is not yet in Rome! The people are still dissatisfied. Hark to the noise in the Forum below! Does it sound as if the populace was accepting the news with rejoicing? Up now, my lords! It is not too late! Acclaim your new Caesar; it is not too late, I say. When the legions return with that mountebank at their head let them find Dea Flavia Augusta and her lord the acknowledged masters of Rome.”

He looked flushed, excited and proud, feeling that even at this eleventh hour he could carry these men along with him if Dea Flavia put the weight of her power on his side. Now he paused in his peroration, standing above his fellow-conspirators as if already he were their ruler, and looking from one face to the other with eager restless eyes that expressed all his enthusiasm and all his hopes.

But the two older men had evidently no stomach for the situation as it now was. It had been easy matter enough to murder the Caesar treacherously and while his legions were three days' march away. But now everything was very different, the issues very doubtful; no doubt that a safe retreat away from the city would be by far the wiser course.

Caius Nepos, with vivid recollections of his last interview with the Caesar, shook his head with slow determination. Ancyrus, the elder, was silent and only the three younger men had followed Hortensius Martius in his heated argument.

”What sayest thou, Augusta?” asked Philippus Decius at last, looking doubtfully upon the young girl.

”That ye must make your plans without me, my lords,” she said coldly.

”Since, as you say, the praefect of Rome is dead, I can make no choice worthy of him who is gone. I choose to return to mine allegiance, my loyalty to the Caesar and to my House.”

”If the Caesar returns,” urged Hortensius Martius, ”he will vent some of his wrath on thee.”

”Then will I suffer for my treachery, my lords,” she rejoined proudly, ”in accordance with my deserts.”

”But Augusta ...”

”I pray you, my lord,” she interposed haughtily, ”do not prolong your arguments. My mind is made up. An you value your own safety in the future, 'twere wiser to make preparations for a lengthy stay away from Rome.”

”Hadst thou listened to us yesterday ...” sighed Ancyrus, the elder.

”A heavy crime had lain against us all,” she said. ”Be thankful, my lords, that in the history of Rome when it comes to be written, your deed will not have sullied the page that marks to-day. And now, my lords, I bid you farewell! You are in no danger if you leave the city forthwith. The rejoicings at the entry of the Caesar and the homecoming of his legions will last many days, during that time your names will be erased from the tablets of my kinsman's memory.”

”The G.o.ds grant it!” murmured Caius Nepos. ”But thou, Augusta, what of thee?”

”I, my lords,” she said with a gentle smile, the irony of which was lost on their self-centred intellects, ”I pray you have no thoughts of me. I have been placed in the keeping of one who, I am told, is mightier than Caesar. There must I be safe; so farewell, my lords; we meet again, I hope, in happier and more peaceful times.”

She stood up and one by one--for was she not still the Augusta and the favourite kinswoman of the Caesar?--they bent the knee before her and kissed the hem of her gown. After which act of homage they retired with backs bent and walking backwards out of the room.

My lord Hortensius Martius was the last to take his leave. He went down on both knees and would have encircled the Augusta with his arms, only she drew back quickly a step or two.

”Dea ... in the name of my love for thee ...” he began.

But she interrupted him gently, yet firmly.

”Speak not to me of love, my lord,” she said. ”'Tis but love's ghost that moves to and fro when you speak.”

Then as he would have protested, she put up her hand with a gesture of finality.

”It is no use, my lord. What love there is in me, that you could never have aroused--not even in the past. I entreat you not to insist. Love cannot be compelled. It is or is not. Whence it comes we know not; mayhap the G.o.ds do know ... mayhap there is only one who knows ... and he seems to give much, but also to take all.... Therefore mayhap love comes from him, and when we are not prepared to give up all for love's sake, then doth he withhold the supreme gift and leave our hearts barren.... Mayhap! mayhap!” she sighed, ”alas! I know not! and you, good my lord, do not look so puzzled and so scared. I bid you farewell now.

I'll not forget you; to remember is so much easier than to love.”

He had perforce to accept his dismissal. He felt rebellious against fate and would have liked to have forced her will. But as she stood there before him, clad all in white, so young and so chaste and yet a woman who knew what love was, an awed reverence for her crept into his heart and he felt that indeed he would never dare to speak again to her of love.

He too kissed the hem of her tunic now, just as the others had done, and just as they had done he walked out of her presence backwards with back bent and an overwhelming disappointment in his heart.