‘Nero!’ exclaimed his mother: ‘I thought you were still in the banquet hall. If the Emperor awakes he may notice your absence.’
‘There is little fear of that,’ said Nero, laughing. ‘I left the Emperor snoring on his couch, and the other guests decorously trying to suppress the most portentous yawns. They, poor wretches, will have to stay on till midnight or later, unless Narcissus sets them free from the edifying spectacle of a semi-divinity quite intoxicated.’
‘Hush!’ said Agrippina, severely. ‘This levity is boyish and ill-timed. Jest at what you like, but never at the majesty of the Imperial power—not even in private, not even to me. And remember that palace walls have ears. Did you leave Octavia at the table?’
‘I did.’
‘Imprudent!’ said his mother. ‘You know what pains I have taken to keep her from seeing too much of her father except when we are present. Claudius sometimes sleeps off the fumes of wine, and after a doze he can talk as sensibly as he ever does. Was Britannicus in the Hall?’
‘Britannicus?’ said Nero. ‘Of course not. You have taken pains enough, mother, to keep him in the background. According to the antique fashion which the Emperor has revived of late, you saw him at the banquet, sitting at the end of the seat behind his father. But the boys have been dismissed with their pedagogues long ago, and, for all I know, Britannicus has been sent to bed.’
‘And for whose sake do I take these precautions?’ asked the Empress. ‘Is it not for your sake, ungrateful? Is it not that you may wear the purple, and tower over the world as the Imperator Romanus?’
‘For my sake,’ thought Nero, ‘and for her own sake, too.’ But he said nothing; and as he had not attained to the art of disguising his thoughts from that keenest of observers, he bent down, to conceal a smile, and kissed his mother’s cheek, with the murmured words, ‘Best of mothers!’
‘Best of mothers! Yes; but for how long?’ said Agrippina. ‘When once I have seated you on the throne—’ She broke off her sentence. She had never dared to tell her son the fearful augury which the Chaldeans had uttered of him: ‘He shall be Emperor, and shall kill his mother.’ He had never dreamed that she had returned the answer: ‘Let him slay me, so he be Emperor.’
‘Optima mater, now and always,’ he replied. ‘But I am angry with Britannicus—very angry!’ and he stamped his foot.