"One of the departed cometh to ask that his offspring be thine heir," she suggested.
The old emperor nodded eagerly. "It may be, it may be," he assented. "I have been pondering long upon the matter."
A silence fell and the two gazed absently across the shimmering vision of Rome, below them, three leagues to the west. About them were spread the villas of the rich in retreat, the very essence of repose, the birdsong and the murmur of laurels in the breeze; in the distance was the apotheosis of power, but their thoughts overreached the things seen and questioned after things unknown. In their philosophy, life was all. After it was Shadow, an inevitable obliteration in which the just and the unjust were immersed eternally. But no youth, looking forward to the long, eventful days to come, experienced the grave wonder that these expended on the time after things were expected to end. The awe of the unexplored Hereafter—what a waste of universal, earth-old, intuitive awe, if there be no Hereafter!
Tiberius muttered, as if to himself:
"There is another—yet another dream. I cast dice with Three; three grisly hags, and I lose, though the tesseræ were cogged. But let be, let be; the soothsayers shall read me that one!"
He sat up.
"Came you of a purpose to speak with me, Antonia?" he asked.
"I did," she said, "but it seems that the time is not propitious."
"Any hour is propitious for thee, Antonia."
"Thou art a kind man, Cæsar. I came to speak of Agrippa."