“Things are different now,” he replied with his eyes bent on the ground.
“How?” asked Caius Bononius in surprise. “Has my Lucius renounced the delights of the revel and the lustre of flower-wreathed triclinia?”
“Not entirely—but your remark about a young beauty—you needn’t smile, Caius! In perfect truth: during the last month a change has taken place in this respect, which—how am I to say...?”
“How are you to speak? As you think! The confusion in your words distinctly shows how hard you are trying to conceal rather than disclose your thoughts. Come, Lucius! Have you so completely forgotten that we did not vow faith and friendship to each other only over the golden Falernian, that our relations have a deeper root? If things have occurred that influence your character, your views of the world, let me know what has affected you; for as a sincere, though half-superfluous friend, I have a right to your implicit confidence. As I live, you give me the impression that some important matter is in question. Speak, my Lucius! Have you, in contradiction to your whole past, thrown yourself into the study of philosophy? Have you come in contact with some saint of the sect of the Nazarenes and thus acquired a taste for the beautiful legends of the East?”
“Nothing of the sort,” sighed Lucius, taking his friend by the arm and drawing him slowly along with him in the direction of the Subura. “You will laugh at me when you learn how your invincible Epicurean has fared at last.... Yes, you are right, Caius; it would be foolish if I wished to conceal from you, my faithful friend, what your penetration would nevertheless discover.... So know—but don’t accuse me of weakness—I am desperately in love, not only with my eyes, as before, but body and soul, a second Troilus, a Leander who would breast the surges of every sea to at last clasp his Hero in his arms.”
“You have often talked so,” said Caius smiling.
“Talked, but never felt. The best proof of the genuineness of my emotions—to myself—is the ardor with which I long to lead the beloved maiden across my threshold as my wife. You know ‘marriage’ used to be a terrible word to me, Caius: now, since I have seen Hero—her name is really Hero, and she is the daughter of an aristocratic Sicilian—since that time I have known nothing sweeter than Hymen’s torch, and longingly await the moment which, spite of all difficulties and disasters, must at last unite us.”
“Difficulties?” repeated Bononius, pausing. “Does Hero deny her Leander the ardently-desired love? Has the handsome Rutilius for the first time wooed in vain?”
Lucius Rutilius gazed at the western sky as if he were examining the position of the stars.
“There is still time,” he murmured, then turning to Bononius, added: