For the moment her sense of dignity prevailed. Whatever she might do in the future, she was comparatively helpless now. The praefect in the discharge of his functions—second only to the Cæsar—was all-powerful where he stood.
Taurus Antinor was still the praefect of Rome, still a member of the Senate and favourite of Caligula. He had her at a disadvantage now, just as she had held him a while ago when she forced on the public sale of the girl Nola. Therefore, though with a look she would have crushed the insolent, and her delicate hands were clenched into fists that would have chastised him then and there if they had the strength, she returned his look of fierce defiance with her usual one of calm.
"Thou hast spoken, Taurus Antinor," she said coldly, "and in deference to the law which thou dost represent I bow to thy commands. Art thou content?" she added, seeing that he made no reply.
"Content?" he asked, puzzled at her meaning.
"Aye!" she said; "I asked thee if thou wert content. Thou hast humiliated a daughter of Cæsar, a humiliation which she is not like to forget."
"I crave thy pardon if I have transgressed beyond the limits of my duty."
"Thy duty? Nay, Taurus Antinor, a man's duties are as varied as a woman's moods, and he is wisest who knows how to adapt the one to the other. 'Tis not good, remember, to run counter to Dea Flavia's will. 'Tis much that thou must have forgotten, O praefect, ere thou didst set thy so-called duty above the fulfilment of my wish."
"Nay, gracious lady," he said simply, "I had forgotten nothing. Not even that Archelaus Menas, the sculptor, died for having angered thee; nor that Julius Campanius perished in exile and young Decretas in fetters, because of thine enmity. Thou seest that—though somewhat of a stranger in Rome—I know much of its secret history, and though mine eyes had until now never beheld thy loveliness, yet had mine ears heard much of thy power."
"Yet at its first encounter thou didst defy it."
"I have no mother to mourn o'er my death like young Decretas," he said curtly, "nor yet a wife to make into a sorrowing widow like the sculptor Menas."