"Nay, who says it, Cæsar? And it is not age that hath blanched me. I was gray at forty—much more gray than thou art now."
"No, no! Not age! Truly a woman's protest. But then, perchance not. Thy husband's death undid thee. How thou didst love him! Save for thine example I should say that Eros himself is dead!"
After a little he muttered to himself:
"Alas! What a name to conjure death! My son Drusus, thy spouse Drusus, and thy son Drusus, the Germanicus. Dead! All! and in their youth. The very name hath a sinister look."
The old man shook his unsteady head and knuckled his sunken cheek. The widow's saddened face wore also some surprise.
"Canst thou speak of thy son Drusus, now?" she asked. "Not in these many years have I heard thee name him."
"No!" he answered shortly. "I speak of dreams; new dreams, which I mean to have the soothsayers interpret."
"Tell me of them, Augustus," she urged.
"There is one, and it comes nightly. It is a Shade from Thanatos, which approacheth. I put the ægis into its dead hands, crown its death-dewed brow, do obeisance before a pale ghost that melts again into the Shades—and after it passes all Rome, and the Empire of the Cæsars."
The widow's eyes showed unutterable sadness, which was unrelieved by tears. The unanointed Cæsars that had passed into the Shades had gathered unto their number no nobler one than the gallant young Germanicus, and the last remnant of the ancient glory of Rome had passed with him. But she put off the encroaching lapse into retrospection.