"The gods grant it!" murmured Caius Nepos. "But thou, Augusta, what of thee?"
"I, my lords," she said with a gentle smile, the irony of which was lost on their self-centred intellects, "I pray you have no thoughts of me. I have been placed in the keeping of one who, I am told, is mightier than Cæsar. There must I be safe; so farewell, my lords; we meet again, I hope, in happier and more peaceful times."
She stood up and one by one—for was she not still the Augusta and the favourite kinswoman of the Cæsar?—they bent the knee before her and kissed the hem of her gown. After which act of homage they retired with backs bent and walking backwards out of the room.
My lord Hortensius Martius was the last to take his leave. He went down on both knees and would have encircled the Augusta with his arms, only she drew back quickly a step or two.
"Dea ... in the name of my love for thee ..." he began.
But she interrupted him gently, yet firmly.
"Speak not to me of love, my lord," she said. "'Tis but love's ghost that moves to and fro when you speak."
Then as he would have protested, she put up her hand with a gesture of finality.
"It is no use, my lord. What love there is in me, that you could never have aroused—not even in the past. I entreat you not to insist. Love cannot be compelled. It is or is not. Whence it comes we know not; mayhap the gods do know ... mayhap there is only one who knows ... and he seems to give much, but also to take all.... Therefore mayhap love comes from him, and when we are not prepared to give up all for love's sake, then doth he withhold the supreme gift and leave our hearts barren.... Mayhap! mayhap!" she sighed, "alas! I know not! and you, good my lord, do not look so puzzled and so scared. I bid you farewell now. I'll not forget you; to remember is so much easier than to love."
He had perforce to accept his dismissal. He felt rebellious against fate and would have liked to have forced her will. But as she stood there before him, clad all in white, so young and so chaste and yet a woman who knew what love was, an awed reverence for her crept into his heart and he felt that indeed he would never dare to speak again to her of love.