"I think I have been taking a great deal of trouble for the sake of a very discourteous person," she said. "I sent Minutia to tell a certain soldier that I am willing to bid him farewell, despite his unworthiness, and he comes and nearly strangles poor old Rhetus for trying to say that I was awaiting him in the peristyle."
"Rhetus' attempt was not very successful, and my time was short," said Sergius, growing alternately red and pale.
"And so you thought to hasten his speech by closing his throat? Oh! you are a wise man—a very logical man. They should have made you dictator, so that you could save Italy by surrendering Rome."
"Is it to say such things that you sent for me?" asked Sergius, after a pause during which he struggled against embarrassment and wrath.
"Surely not, for how could I know that you were going to behave so outrageously? If you will follow me, we will go into the peristyle."
She turned back through the passage, and Sergius followed, issuing a moment later into a large, cloister-like court, open in the middle, and decorated with flowers and shrubs. Four rows of columns, half plain, half fluted, supported the shed roof that protected the frescoes. These covered three of the walls. On the back was a garden scene so painted as to seem like a continuation of the court itself into the far distance; on the right was the combat between Aeneas and Turnus, and on the left a representation of the first Torquatus despoiling the slain Gaul of the trophy from which the family took its name.
"And now I will tell you why I sent."
She had seated herself in a marble chair with wolf heads carved on the arms, and her face had grown grave and thoughtful.
"It was to tell you a dream—a dream of you that I had last night."
Her cheek flushed, and Sergius' eyes sparkled.