But now Ancyrus, the elder, began to speak and his voice was mellow and gentle.
"The people have spoken plainly, O Augusta," he said; "wilt set thy will against the might of the people of Rome? Hath not Jove spoken clearly too? Think on the events of the past two days! The Cæsar's pronouncement in the Circus, the tumult amongst the people when my lord Hortensius Martius courted certain death in order to win thy favours, the rage of the populace against the Cæsar!... think on it all! Did not Jove direct all this?"
"Aye! but meseems that he did!" she murmured, as her eyes fastened themselves on the heavy door that led to the inner room, "but since then hath he not directed the people to acclaim the Cæsar of their choice?"
Caius Nepos shrugged his shoulders and Hortensius Martius broke in hotly.
"The rabble clamours for the praefect of Rome! but the praefect is dead...."
"Aye! I remember, my lord," she said quietly, "there is a rumour that he died soon after he had saved thy life."
Then as Hortensius Martius, feeling the sting of the rebuke, bit his under lip to check an angry retort, Ancyrus, the elder, rejoined suavely, trying to pour the oil of his honeyed words on the troubled water of the younger man's wrath.
"The praefect is dead, O Augusta, and the people will soon forget him. Rome deifies thee because of thy great kinsman. Having forgotten the hero of their choice they will readily turn to thee whom they love. They will accept from thy hands the Cæsar whom thou wilt choose."
My lord Hortensius after that first feeling of anger had soon recovered his serenity. He tried to put an expression of sad reproach into the glance which he fixed on the Augusta. Perhaps she had not meant to rebuke him and was already sorry that she had wounded him. He would have liked to put into his glance all that he felt in his heart for her; deep down within him, below the overlaying crust of his ambition, there was real love for the beautiful girl who had it in her power to bestow on him all the gifts for which he craved.
He firmly believed that the Augusta reciprocated his love. She had always received his admiration more patiently than that of others, she had more than once listened quietly to the protestations of his love. Yesterday he had risked his life to win her hand: she, a proud Roman lady, was not like to forget his valour. When from the arena he had caught sight of her face, it was terror-stricken and deathly pale; she had feared for him then, of that he was quite sure.