‘Then again,’ continued Cestus, more artfully, ‘the Prefect has been a long time in Capreae, and cannot be expected to remain there much longer. He will return to Rome, and with him Martialis.’
This was a subtle stroke, but he got no reply, save only a low rippling laugh and a shake of her head, which was turned persistently towards the fire. Whereupon he shrugged his [pg 266]shoulders, and silence fell between them for a considerable space, which he employed in fixedly watching her as she sat with her hands clasped across her knee, apparently lost in a reverie.
The bright glow of the fire bathed her face and figure, and threw them into striking relief in the now dark room. The Suburan, with his elbow on his knee and his head dropped sideways on his hand, feasted his eyes with the lovely picture she made, which drew no small portion of its charm from the grace of her unconsciousness. It awoke his mind to a strange activity. Out of the dim past he conjured up scenes which remained engrained in his mind as sharp and distinct as events of yesterday. Amongst these was a bright and vivid morning on the Janiculum Hill in Rome; the glorious city spread beneath glittering in the morning beams.... A beautiful child dancing and skipping in pure delight; a hasty dash under a high garden wall, and down a narrow obscure lane.... Then again the depth of a dark, rainy, hot, summer night, when he entered that self-same room, weary with travel and prolonged toil of search for his destination.... The deposit of his tiny sleeping burden, and the astonished faces of the two inmates of the room.
Fortune had favoured him; it was the reward of his humanity. As he looked on the heedless maiden, his heart warmed with satisfaction; and for some brief moments, he felt at peace with all and everything. How exquisite she would look clothed as a white-handed patrician and set in the marble halls of a palace. Her beauty had utterly conquered him. It was a new and novel experience to have lived in daily contact and companionship with a being so delicate. Her sprightliness and spirit charmed him, whilst her purity and gentleness softened and quelled him. It was no ordinary degree of pride which tingled in his breast at the fact, that she was more indebted to and more dependent upon him than any one, although she knew it not. Should she learn now from his lips? The heart of this rough, vice-sodden, crime-laden man beat like a girl’s as he contemplated the action, and gazed on the exquisite profile before him. How those deep-fringed orbs would glow and flash in wonder, and the delicious curves of her lips tremble with emotion! His [pg 267]cool reason was fast departing, and his tremor increasing, as the fascination before his eyes hurried him on to the consummation of his sudden desire. In two or three minutes more he could not have resisted the temptation to hold the heart and soul of the fair girl breathless at his disposal. All question of policy had fled, and he was preparing for his task, when the grate and thud of a bolt being drawn, sounded on their ears through the open door.
‘That is father!’ exclaimed Neæra, rousing herself suddenly and turning round in expectation.
A deep sigh, either of relief or disappointment, escaped the lips of Cestus, and he straightened up his body.
The creak of the potter’s workshop door was followed by his step, and the next moment he entered the room and advanced toward them. They looked at him in astonishment, for a wonderful change was in his aspect. He was clearly in a state of great mental excitement, not to speak of evident delight. The soot of the furnace on this occasion rather overspread and subdued the reddish incrustation of clay on his person, and in his hand he carried a globular vessel of dull, coarse-looking glass. He held it up before him as he entered, in such an eager manner, as to draw their attention to it at once, without a word from his lips. His deep-set eyes sparkled in the firelight with infinite vivacity, as they flung their flashing glances first from one to the other, and then to the cup in his hand, and back again. His eager hurried step brought him up to the Suburan and the maiden almost at a run, and then he stopped short, with the vessel uplifted in one hand, and the forefinger of the other pointing to it. A strange laugh, or chuckle of supreme joy or exultation, escaped him, and he moved the article, with its accompanying index finger, first before the face of Neæra and then of Cestus. They arose silently from their seats and stared at the potter with strange wonder, and something of alarm, at this unusual proceeding on the part of a man of habitual reserve and serenity. It was a spectacle almost as little to be expected, as for a statue of the grave goddess and her owl to step down from its plinth and cut a caper on a temple floor. They saw that his features and his frame were trembling with extreme agitation; and failing to comprehend its cause in a [pg 268]glass cup of not the slightest pretensions to use or ornament, they remained, with anxious gaze, to await some further development of such unwonted symptoms.
‘Look—it is done—it is found—I have found it—I, Masthlion!’ gasped the potter, with another laugh. ‘At last—at last!’ he cried, rolling and smoothing the vessel in his grimy hands, with the ecstasy of a miser fondling his treasure heaps.
Grave doubts arose in the mind of Cestus as to the actual state of his kinsman’s mind; and giving him a glance of suspicion, and another of contempt on the paltry object of his delight, he growled as follows—‘As far as I can see, potter, it is a thing that ought to be well lost beyond redemption, and a thing of regret, if found again in any dusthole.’
Masthlion vented another chuckling laugh, and turned his eyes on the face of Neæra, who rested her hand on his shoulder, and touched the glass with the slender fingers of her other hand. Timidity and doubt were in her actions and on her countenance. She returned his gaze with affectionate concern and said soothingly, ‘You seemed pleased to have found it, father. Had you lost it long? Why do you prize it? Tell me!’