“Ah! my excellent soldier,” she said, with a pretty sigh, “you cannot conceive what a vexation my servants are to me, or how rebellious and unruly! Would there were but a man here, such as yourself, for instance, to protect and soften a lonely matron’s exile.”
This was very flattering to my vanity, more especially as it was accompanied by a gracious look, with more of condescension in it than I fancied usually fell to the lot of those who met her handsome eyes. In such circumstances, under a lordly roof, and careless again of to-morrow, a new spell of experience was commenced in the Roman villa, and I learned much of the ways of corrupt Roman government and a luxurious society there which might amuse you were it not all too long to set down. For a time, when her ladyship gave, as was her frequent pleasure, gorgeous dinners, and all the statesmen and soldiers of the neighboring towns came in to sup with her, I pleaded one thing and another in excuse for absence from the places where I must have met many too well known before. But Electra, as the time went on, was proud of her handsome, stalwart Centurion, and advanced me quicker than my modest ambition could demand, clothed me in the gorgeous livery of her household troops, raised me to the chief command, and finally, one evening, sat me at her side on her own silken couch, before all the lords and senators, and, deriding their surprise and covert sarcasm, proclaimed me first favorite there with royal effrontery.
Did I but say Electra was proud of her new find? Much better had it been simply so; but she was not accustomed to moderation in any matters, and perhaps my cold indifference to her overwhelming attractions, when all else fawned for an indulgent look, excited her fiery thirst of dominion. Be this as it may, no very long time after my arrival it was palpable her manner was changing; and as the days went by, and she would have me sit on the tiger-skin at her knee, a second Antony to this British Cleopatra, telling wonderful tales of war and woodcraft, I presently found the unmistakable light of awakening love shining through her ladyship’s half-shut lids. Many and many a time, before and since, has that beacon been lit for me in eyes of every complexion—it makes me sad to think how well I know that gentle gleam—but never in all my life did I experience anything like the concentrated fire that burned silently but more strongly, day by day, in those black Roman eyes.
I would not be warned. More; I took a lawless delight in covertly piling on material and leading that reckless dame, who had used and spurned a score of gallant soldiers or great senators, according to her idle fancy, to pour out her over-ample affection on me, the penniless adventurer. And, like one who fans a spark among combustible material, the blaze that resulted was near my undoing.
The more dense I was to her increasing love, the more she suffered. Truly, it was pitiful to see her, who was so little accustomed to know any other will, thwarted by so fine an agency—to see her imperialness strain and fret at the silken meshes of love, and fume to have me know and answer to her meaning, yet fear to tell it, and at times be timorous to speak, and at others start up, palely wrathful, that she could not order in this case as elsewhere. Indeed, my lady was in a bad way, and now she would be fierce and sullen, and anon gracious and melancholy. In the latter mood she said one day, as I sat by her bisellium:
“I am ill and pale, my Centurion. I wonder you have not noticed it.”
“Perhaps, madam,” I said, with the distant respect that galled her so, “perhaps your ladyship’s supper last night was over-large and late—and those lampreys, I warned you against them that third time.”
“Gross! Material!” exclaimed Electra, frowning blackly. “Guess again—a finer malady—a subtler pain.”
“Then, maybe the valley air affects my lady’s liver, or rheumatism, perhaps, exacts a penalty for some twilight rambles.”
Such banter as this, and more, was all the harder to bear since she could not revenge it. I was sorry for the tyrantess, for she was wonderfully attractive thus pensivewise, and wofully in earnest as she turned away to the painted walls and sighed to herself.