But at her words the last vestige of deference fled from the praefect's manner; pity now would have been weak folly. Had he yielded he would have despised himself even as this proud girl now affected to scorn him.
He interposed his massive figure between Dea Flavia and the slave and said loudly:
"By thy leave, Nola, the daughter of Menecreta, is the property of the State and 'tis I will decide whither she goeth now."
"Until to-morrow only, Taurus Antinor," she rejoined coldly, "for to-morrow she must be in the slave market again, when my agents will bid for and buy her according to my will."
"Nay! she shall not be put up for sale to-morrow."
"By whose authority, O praefectus?"
"By mine. The State hath given me leave to purchase privately a number of slaves from the late censor's household. 'Tis my intention to purchase Nola thus."
"Thou hast no right," she said, still speaking with outward calm, though her whole soul rebelled against the arrogance of this man who dared to thwart her will, to gainsay her word, and set up his dictates against hers, "thou hast no right thus to take the law in thine own hands."
"Nay! as to that," he replied with equal calm, "I'll answer for mine own actions. But the slave Nola shall not pass into thy hands, Augusta! Thou hast wrought quite enough mischief as it is; be content and go thy way. Leave the child in peace."
In these days of unbridled passions and unfettered tyranny, a man who spoke thus to a daughter of the Cæsars spoke at peril of his life. Both Dea Flavia and Taurus Antinor knew this when they faced one another eye to eye, their very souls in rebellion one against the other—his own turbulent and fierce, with the hot blood from a remote land coursing in his veins, blinding him to his own advantage, to his own future, to everything save to his feeling of independence at all cost from the oppression of this family of tyrants; her own almost serene in its consciousness of limitless power.