"It may still be hoped," she ventured, "that the knave lies!"
"Junia, thou knowest Agrippa! It is my terror lest the knave be armed with a truth!"
"Out with it all," she went on desperately. "The Herod is convinced that he is innocent—this time—of any ill-will against Cæsar, and he came here and spent the greater part of an hour, beseeching me to use my influence to hasten Cæsar's hearing of Eutychus!"
"In God's name, answer! Did you refuse him?"
"I did! I besought him to let Cæsar follow his own way, since the emperor is notedly slow in hearing charges in these later years. I assured him that Cæsar might be more displeased, urged against his inclination to hear a stupid slave, than the slave's charge could make him. But the Herod is more stubborn than the classic steed of Judea. He demanded haughtily of me, if I expected him to treat with a slanderer or beg a truce with a lie. Then I refused him my offices. Wherefore he hath posted off to Antonia!"
"She will not harken to him—!" he cried with sudden desperation.
"O Marsyas, this day I should be exorcised as a fury, bringing evil happenings. But better the sorry truth than a fair lie. Antonia hath lived out of the world for the last decade, as hast thou. But her seclusion hath achieved the opposite harm, that is hatched by solitariness. She retired, full of years and honor; the world, approaching her door, comes in fair garments, bringing tokens of esteem, talks of ancient triumphs, the virtues of Antonia and the great respect Cæsar hath for her. Wherefore, kindly treated by the world, remembering nothing but the good of the old days and believing in her sweet dotage that she crushed evil when she crushed Sejanus, her natural strategic sense hath been lost in a great, all-enveloping charity. Her natural nobility hath outgrown the wariness which aids youth, and her dimmed sight sees things of stature, only, or of high relief. She will see in the prince's desire only a desire to clear himself of a charge and she will honor him for it! She will do his bidding!"
Marsyas snatched up his cloak and sprang toward the archway.
"Let me to her!" he cried.
"Wait!" Junia cried. "Be prepared against defeat, though it never come! What wilt thou do, if she be immovable, or already gone—for Cæsar is in Tusculum to-day?"