Claudia colored deeply, and involuntarily drew the embroidered curtain, as if she feared that the litter-bearers might read her secret in her face.
“Not so loud!” she whispered, and then she softly kissed her cheek.
“You confess?” asked Lucilia. But the only answer was a closer caress and a fervent kiss on her lips.
“That is enough,” said Lucilia. “Your kiss says everything. No girl gives such a kiss as that, who is not desperately in love. It was meant for Caius Aurelius.”
“Hush!” Claudia entreated, laying her hand on the audacious girl’s mouth. “Promise me....”
“Not to mount the rostra[304] and proclaim in the Forum: Claudia is in love with Aurelius!...? You little fool! Just the reverse; I will keep it a dead secret, and do all I can to clear the road for you. For things will not run so smoothly as you think. A mere provincial knight, and Claudia, the daughter of the first senatorial house in Rome! You cannot take it ill in your father if he maintains the rights of his position, and intends his daughter to marry a consul."[305]
“But if his daughter objects?”
“Then Titus Claudius must give way, or the gentle Claudia is not incapable of running away with Caius Aurelius.”
“What are you saying!” exclaimed Claudia horrified. Then she sat looking thoughtfully into her lap.
“Do you suppose,” she said presently, “that his allusion, yesterday, to Sextus Furius was meant seriously?”