The world of helplessly-impelled children that she had pictured to him, the world of innocence and forgivable inclinations, little warfares and artless badness, play or the feeding of primitive hungers, or of building of roof-trees—all that with which she had partly enchanted him was suddenly stripped of its atmosphere, and the glare of realities, fierce passions, deadly hates, shamelessness and blood stood before him. In short, he had been instantly precipitated into his old Essenic misanthropy now directly imposed upon the heads of individuals, which before in his solitary days had been heaped without understanding upon the heads of strangers.
He did care because that the creature had simply betrayed her true self; more dreadful than that, she had wrested from him the charity his experience in the world had yielded him—for Lydia!
Blind fury maddened him; her offense called for a fiercer response than a blush; she had robbed his heart wholly and was burning its empty house.
He put forth his strength, undid her arms and flung her from him. For a moment he felt a bloodthirsty desire to follow her up and break her over the stone exedra, but remnants of reason prevailed.
Springing through the exit, he was gone without uttering a word in answer to her.
Junia heard the last of his footsteps on the flagging leading out of her father's grounds, and for a moment wavered between screaming for her own slaves to pursue him, or delivering him up to the prætorian guards.
"For what?" Discretion asked. "To have him tell, under torture, thy part in sheltering Agrippa? At thy peril!"
But he had flung her away; he had rejected her; he had escaped after all her pains, her pretensions, her plans! For him, she had left Alexandria and endured Cæsar. For him, she had forgone seasons of conquest in Rome! For him, she had neglected Caligula, and now Caligula would be emperor. For him she had sacrificed everything and had lost, at last. He, a Jew, a manumitted slave, a barbarian! She, a favorite of emperors and consuls, a manipulator of affairs, fortunes and families! And he had rejected her!
There were muffled flying footsteps on the sod without, and Caligula, pallid and moist with terrified perspiration, dashed into the inclosure as if seeking a place to hide.
When he saw her, he sprang back, but halted, on recognizing her.