Varia was very quiet these days. Childlike, she hid from Marius; childlike, sulked when he found her. Childlike, also, she hung in raptures over the gifts which were showered upon her, nor ever dreamed that they were the price with which she was bought. She hung aloof, shyly, from the invasion of her home; in her eyes a child's longing to join the merrymaking, mingled with all its dread of a rebuff.
Marius, for his part, bore his honors easily. That he was popular among the guests went without saying. He hunted with the men and talked of state and war; he parried the agile thrusts of the women with laughing skill; he made persistent love to Varia.
Nerissa, the old nurse who had brought up Varia from her forsaken childhood, going in to her charge to instruct her formally in the duties of wife and mother which lay before her, looked in at the door, smiled to herself, and went away. Half a dozen young beauties had taken possession before her, with chatter and laughter—slender Roman girls, of the haughtiest blood in Britain. Julia danced on the marble floor, in and out among the slender columns, in jewelled sandals of Varia's, her skirts held high; Nigidia and Valencia, between them, examined a peplus of white silk soft enough to be drawn through the hand, and woven with threads of gold. Gratia, named for her mother, and daughter of Count Pomponius of the Saxon Shore, sat on the couch beside Varia, slowly waving a new fan of peacock's feathers set in a handle of chased gold. Paula and Virginia were turning over an ivory casket of trinkets at a table near by. Varia sat with empty hands, watching and listening. For the first time in her darkened life she was knowing the companionship of her own age and kind, very shy, but longing greatly to be friendly, to talk and laugh as did these radiant others.
"Tell us, Varia, what thy lover hath given thee?" Paula called gayly across the room. Julia, ceasing her dancing, put off the sandals, slipped on her own, and came to sit by Varia, on the other side.
"Ay, tell us!" she cried, and slipped an arm around Varia's neck, girlwise. Varia flushed, half with pleasure at the embrace, half with confusion.
"Many things, but I will have none of them," she answered.
"Now but thou art a strange girl!" cried Paula. "Here thou hast a lover, on fire with love for thee, as all the world may see, and thou wilt avail thyself nothing of him. By the girdle of Venus! Had I such a lover pursuing me, I'd lead him such a dance that when I did yield he'd swear there was no goddess in heaven like me, and the beckon of my finger would be his command."
"Thou, Paula!" Gratia scoffed, and shook the peacock fan at her. "Thou who hast more lovers than fingers on thy hands—"
"Ay, but truly none quite like Varia's here. Whom can you name so strong, so masterful, so—well, so all that a girl would have? Varia, I am jealous! Why chose he thee instead of me?"
"That were easy to tell," Nigidia murmured over the end of the peplus she held. But Varia did not hear.