Lutorius, who had a warm personal affection for Brinnaria, had been hovering about her, as it were, for some days, and on this last full day of her service he kept, so to speak, fluttering in and out of the Atrium, repeatedly returning to confer about some trifle or other which he had forgotten.
So it happened that he was approaching the portal as she came out for her afternoon airing.
“You have your light carriage, to-day, I see,” he said. “Yesterday you had out your state coach. Why the difference?”
Brinnaria, settling herself among her cushions, leaned out towards him as he stood beside the vehicle, holding on to the tires, his arms stiff, a hand on each wheel.
“This,” she said, “is merely a constitutional. Yesterday I took my last outing with all my special privileges as a Vestal, drove all over Rome in my state coach, drove up to the Capitol, and, in a fashion, said farewell to the advantages of my office.”
“How do you feel about it all?” he asked.
Brinnaria pulled a wry face and laughed a forced laugh.
“I am finding out,” she said, “why so few Vestals ever leave the order. When I realize that, after to-day, I shall have no lictor to clear the streets for me, that I may go out in my litter daily, but even so without a runner ahead, that I may never again drive through Rome, that I have been driven up to the Capitol for the last time and may go there hereafter only afoot or in my litter, I am almost ready to change my mind, give up freedom and matrimony and Almo and all and cling to my privileges. When it comes over me that, as I go out to-day, the lictors of any magistrate will salute me, even the lictors of the Emperor, whereas after to-morrow noon there will be no salutes for me, I understand why most Vestals live out their lives in the order.”
“There is time still to change your mind and stay with us,” he said, smiling.
Brinnaria laughed a perfectly natural laugh.