‘It matters not whether I do or not; it is not worth the trouble to try and remember. I am ever grateful for your visit, your company, your entertaining conversation, which has beguiled my loneliness. And now I must bid good-night—it grows chilly.’
She roused herself from her leaning posture, and gathered up her drapery preparatory to moving off. Afer’s eyes were still riveted on her countenance. Her mocking words were easily borne after the insulting demeanour already experienced. Something like a cold smile rested on his lips as he watched her. He did not feel disposed to leave her yet. Her behaviour had stung him deeply, and the bitterness which gnawed him so grievously was too keen to be borne without the solace of retaliation. He waited a few moments until she was on the point of retiring, without any further notice of him, and then said, in a low voice—
‘It would be better worth your while than you think, Plautia, to strive to remember if the soldier-brother be amongst your acquaintance or not.’
‘Another time when I am more disposed,’ she sternly answered, beginning to descend the grassy mound on which they stood.
‘At your own gracious pleasure,’ he repined, as he leisurely followed. ‘I mentioned it, because I thought it might interest you to know, that whether the acquaintance really exist or not, there are rumours in the island of a somewhat close relationship between you.’
She stopped short, and turned round upon him—so swiftly and sharply, that the skirts and folds of her garments whirled out on the air.
‘Rumours—what rumours? What close relationship? What do you mean?’ she said, with the haughtiness of a queen to a slave.
‘Nothing, but what my words plainly convey. Let me repeat—it is said in the island that a warm friendship exists between yourself and the Centurion Martialis.’
‘And what of that? Is it not permitted to me to have warm friends as well as others?’
He gently shrugged his shoulders, and the action brought the sudden fire to her eyes and the colour to her cheeks. Noting the signs he looked down and smiled covertly, to her intense irritation.