‘Plautia——’
‘It might have been months ere Rome could see you again. The city seemed void. I loathed it. My house seemed turned to a dungeon. My occupations palled upon me. I was weary, and everything was distasteful. I was no longer mistress of myself, and where my mind dwelt, thither I was fated to follow. What could stay me? Not toil and fatigue, nor yet the risk of the lynx-eyed warders of this rocky hermitage of Caesar. Where the will is there is the way, and what were a thousand times the obstacles in the way of mine? I am near thee, Martialis—I have accomplished my purpose. I have come and I confess to thee the reason, and I a woman. To you the world would apportion the voice, and to me the silence; but I own no law, no guide, but you and the promptings of my own heart. I have broken the cold forms and rules which bind a woman’s unsought secret within her breast, even at the risk of her life. I make no excuse—I crave no pardon. Wherefore should I hide the truth? Could my lips alter it, or you blame it? You cannot chide me. Am I less a woman now than before? I have bared my heart to thee, Martialis, but it is still a woman’s, and it has never bent to any sway but yours.’
Could the young soldier’s senses have been more subtly stirred had he been a mariner of old, rousing himself in his idly-floating boat to listen to the fatal, sweet ditties of a siren song stealing into his ears through the tranquil, yellow mist of evening?
He felt his hand imprisoned tightly within the warm grasp of her soft, white palms. Her breath played upon his cheek, [pg 215]and the gloom of their leafy shelter could not hide the shadowy, star-like lustre of her eyes close upturned to his. His ears drank in the rich, thrilling tones of her voice, quivering, like her glorious form, with excess of passion. The delicate perfumes of her attire welled around him, and invaded his faculties like the very essences of her overpowering loveliness. The touch, the eloquent motions, the soft abandon of this creature of superb womanhood: the strange, bewitching phenomenon of her haughty imperiousness sinking into the overwhelming flood of passionate love and tender submission beglamoured his mind. His senses seemed overcharged. As one might seek relief from a choking sensation, he reared his head backwards, with a deep, noiseless breath, and swept his eyes athwart his shoulder round the sea and star-lit heavens. Extraordinary and dream-like as his whole experience of that night was, it was no illusion, such as he began to think it might be. There was the horned moon, bright and tranquil in the dark sky; and there was the track of its silvery radiance dancing on the softly-rippling waters below. The night-air, too, palpably rustled the leaves around his head, and a soft, velvety touch at that moment quivered through him. It was the delicate pressure of her ripe, warm lips on his hand. It awoke the Pretorian to himself and brushed away the brief mist of sensuous sweetness which had enthralled him. To have remained wholly indifferent to such a passionate revelation of the loveliest lips—to have rested unmoved by the soft contact and surrender of the richest wealth of female beauty Rome could show, would have been to renounce all in common with human nature, even on the part of one bred with the phlegmatic coldness and self-possession of a northern clime. But Plautia had cast herself before one born to the same native characteristics of ardent and impulsive blood as herself, though not perhaps in an equal degree of intensity. With his pulses yet tingling he recalled, by a flash of thought, all the evident signs of pleasure and satisfaction with which she had hitherto greeted his presence when chance had thrown them together for a brief period. Her relaxed haughtiness, her glances and smiles were now, it seemed, only too well fraught with real meaning. Her excuses and pretexts for companionship, and a hundred little arts, which had never caused [pg 216]him more thought than an amused gratification, down to the latest evidence of all, in the gift she had sent to the camp, were now supplemented and concluded with a startling explanation. In common with the rest of Rome he had admired her magnificent beauty of face and form, and, by a most natural process of a man in love, he had as often criticised her by the standard of the maiden enthroned in his heart of hearts. He ever found the contrast, morally and physically, to be wellnigh complete. As before, but now with tenfold more vividness, his mind spanned the intervening distance and dwelt upon the fair girl he had left but a short time before. It acted like the sudden transition from the oppressive glow of a tropic dream steeped in narcotic odours, to the waking freshness and cool relief of a breezy dawn. Neæra’s image, ever ready to his invocation, rose before him in its changeless purity and sweetness, its noble dignity and calmness, and purged his spirit of the grosser intoxication which burdened it.
While yet his mind was agitated by such fleeting emotions and reflections, it was vaguely burdened with pain and dread, on account of the vehement nature of the self-willed woman before him. He was simple and chivalrous; and as he thought how she, who could command so much, had dared everything to follow him to this spot for the sake of an unfortunate attachment, his heart ached with pain and pity—all the more as she was doomed to disappointment. The only return she could accept he was unable to make, and the fact of his entire innocence brought him no comfort.
Such was the main current of his thoughts in the short pause which followed on the passionate words of Plautia. In his simple, soldier way, he would rather have been summoned to face a legion single-handed than be under the necessity of administering the coup-de-grace to the dearest hopes and wishes of a woman. Her posture was at the moment half-reclining against his breast.
‘You are cruelly silent,’ she murmured in his ear. ‘Shame! Would you have me say more?’
‘You have done me great honour—great and unexpected,’ he answered, stammering with embarrassment; ‘but I was not prepared to meet such a surprise. If I am confused there is [pg 217]an excuse for it. I thought—and yet, no—I do not know. That I should have held such place in your regard is almost beyond my belief, and I should be little surprised to discover that Plautia is beguiling a tedious evening with a frolic. If so, I shall laugh with as much zest as herself.’
‘O brave frolic for a shallow wit!’ she cried vehemently; ‘and how am I to go about to convince thee, if thou hast not already been convinced? Do I merit no worthier words than those, Martialis?’
‘I made no assertion,’ said the Centurion. ‘If I am answerable for my utterances just for the time, I probably meant no more than to point out more effectively my feelings of astonishment and incredulity as to what has befallen me this night.’