Cornelia studied the details of this second room. It was completely fitted as a bedroom, with everything that a Roman lady of rank could need for her elaborate toilet. A deeply-cushioned couch filled up all one wall to the left, and opposite to her was a door. Cornelia went past the sleeping handmaids and opened it. It led into a third room, small, dark and square, intended apparently as an eating-room. When the chandelier which hung from the ceiling should be lighted, this room also might look rich and comfortable, but it had no entrance excepting through the cubiculum. All the rooms were lighted above; this third room through a kind of shaft, that pierced the ceiling obliquely. Thus the outer world was completely excluded.
Cornelia now returned to the first room, and tried whether the door, through which she and the chamberlain had entered, was bolted on the outside. At a slight touch the two ebony wings turned easily on their hinges, and the young girl, with her swift impulses, was on the point of acting on her hope of liberty, when a glance at each end of the corridor showed her that she had been too hasty; three of the praetorian guard, in full armor, were posted at each exit.
One of them came up to her, and asked, half-respectfully but half-ironically, if she had any orders. He was a gigantic Gaul, stalwart and broad-shouldered, with a good-humored look in his face.
“Do you take orders from a prisoner?” said Cornelia, haughtily.
“Why yes, mistress,” said the soldier. “And, by Hercules! they will be fulfilled with zeal. Sooner or later....”
But he broke off; Cornelia’s lofty gravity confused him.
“What were you about to say?” she asked with a frown.
“I only meant.... If you and Caesar—if you were reconciled—Caesar is very good-natured to the ladies—he loves. You might pay us off, if....”
“Man!” interrupted Cornelia, quivering with rage. “What do you take me for?”
“For all that is sweet and lovely,” said the man much disconcerted. But Cornelia heard him not; she had gone back into the room, and flung herself in despair upon a divan. Convulsive sobs choked her, but presently the tears came, and at last, after crying silently for a long time, she fell asleep. But even in her slumbers her hand still clutched the little phial of poison.