Afer ground his teeth, and muttered something unintelligibly between his lips.
‘She was, do you say? You are insufferably dull, my friend. You have drunk too much, or not enough. It is lucky our companionship is only to be short. Here is my way! Vale! sleep off your sombre fit!’ Afer went on, but not to his bed. He burned with a fever which could not endure the cramping walls of his lodging.
The first faint, luminous gleam of dawn in the eastern sky found him watching, motionless, under the walls of the villa Jovis, and then, and not until then, he went away homeward.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Some days subsequently, Plautia stood with her arms resting on the parapet of the garden wall which edged the cliffs.
Her mood was one of profound abstraction, and the fixed gaze of her eyes seemed to be unconscious of the endless beauties of the scene which lay within the scan of that giddy height. The rays of the autumn sunlight, mingling with the opal-coloured light, the deepening shades of the whispering sea, the changing tints of the mountains, and the white gleam of the cities fringing the sweep of the distant shores, were far from her mind. No sound arose to the secluded spot on high, save the mysterious murmur of nature, so favourable to an utter absorption of mind, until the grate of a human foot behind aroused her with a start. Turning round she beheld Afer standing within a few yards, gazing at her intently.
Since the banquet the manner of Plautia had become that of one quite reconciled to her situation. Nay, it rather betokened satisfaction and pleasure judging by outward manifestation. She had seemingly earned complete freedom also, since she came and went wherever and whenever she pleased, without being subjected to any galling symptom of restraint. Her apartments were free of access to whosoever chose to visit her, though these were necessarily few in number. To Tiberius himself she jestingly contrasted her later freedom with her first day’s experience. He lightly returned, that he prided himself upon the better judgment he had shown, in perceiving the unreality of her momentary dissatisfaction; and that now, since time had proved him to be right, she might call herself the Queen of Capreae, and do aught her mind might fancy, save attempt to quit the island. This he added [pg 301]smilingly, with the customary shake of his forefinger; but, whether it was an earnest injunction veiled in jest, Plautia had not as yet thought proper to prove.
In accordance with this disposition of affairs Afer had first presented himself at her apartments, and, by direction of her attendants, had followed her to the garden.