‘You sent for me, Empress—here I am!’ said he, smiling gaily, and pinching her beautiful cheek. She pushed his hand away. Had she been really the exalted personage he jokingly termed her, her gesture could not have been haughtier in manner. He laughed.
‘Forgive me, beautiful Plautia! I ought to have known that my salutation should have been warmer. Be not offended! I will hallow with my lips what my fingers have profaned.’
He bent down his lips, as if to kiss her rich-hued cheek, [pg 109]but she pushed him away, and reared her head with an angry flash of her black eyes.
‘Alas! wherefore did you send for me to be so cruel?’ sighed he, with burlesque sorrow and pain.
‘Psa!’ she said scornfully.
‘It was not so always,’ observed the Prefect, with an affected sigh.
‘And should be less so now,’ was the rejoinder; ‘the noble Livia should be granted some measure of faithfulness—at the first at least.’
‘Ho! ho! jealous?’
She gave him a momentary glance of surprise, and then exploded into uncontrollable laughter. Peal after peal rolled full and musically through the apartment, and yet so freely and spontaneously, as to forbid any idea of its mirth being forced.
‘Well—you seem amused at something,’ said the Prefect presently, with a frown.