‘I need not see or speak to any of the others, Otho,’ said Poppæa; ‘but surely I have a right to ask that when the slave sees the gilded letica with its purple awnings I may for one moment advance across the hall, and tell Nero that Poppæa Sabina greets the friend of her lord, and thanks him for honouring their poor house with his august presence.’
‘Well, Poppæa,’ said Otho, ‘if it must be so it must. You know that I can never resist your lightest petition, and I would rather give up the banquet altogether than see tears in those soft eyes, and that expression of displeasure against Otho on your lips.’
So, when Nero arrived, Poppæa met him, and, brief as was the interview, she had thrown into it all the sorcery of a potent enchantress. A sweet and subtle odour seemed to wrap her round in its seductive atmosphere, and every word and look and gesture, while it was meant to seem exquisitely simple, had been profoundly studied with a view to its effect. Poppæa was well aware that Nero was accustomed to effrontery, and that Acte had won his heart by her maidenly reserve. Nothing, therefore, could have been more sweetly modest than Poppæa’s greeting. Only for one moment had she unveiled her whole face and let the light of her violet eyes flow through his soul. There was one observer who fully understood the pantomime. It was Paris, who read the real motives of Poppæa and was lost in admiration at so superb a specimen of acting. His knowledge of physiognomy, his insight into human nature, his mastery of his art, enabled him to see the truth which Nero did not even suspect, that this lovely lady with the infantile features was ‘a fury with a Grace’s mask.’
She saw that her glance had produced the whole effect which she had intended. Nero was amazed, and for the moment confused. He had never experienced such witchery as this. Acte was modest and beautiful, but to compare Acte with Poppæa was to set a cygnet beside a swan. Poppæa vanished the moment her greeting had been delivered, but Nero stood silent. Almost the first word he said to his host struck like a death-knell on Otho’s heart.
‘Otho,’ he said, ‘how much luckier you are than I am! You have the loveliest and most charming wife in Rome; I have the coldest and least attractive.’
‘Let not Cæsar disparage the sharer of his throne,’ said Otho, concealing under measured phrases his deep alarm. ‘The Empress Octavia is as beautiful as she is noble.’
But Nero could hardly arouse himself to admire and enjoy the best banquet of his reign, until he had called for his tablets, and written on them a message for Poppæa. ‘I am thanking your lovely lady for her entertainment,’ said the Emperor, as he handed his tablets to his freedman Doryphorus, and told him to take them to the lady of the house. But what he had really written was a request that Poppæa would deign to greet him for a moment during some pause in the long feast.
He made the requisite opportunity by saying that he would cool himself in the viridarium, and again he found Poppæa a miracle of reserve and sweetness. From that moment he determined, if it could in any way be compassed, to take her from her husband.
But this, as we have said, was not the only adventure of the evening. When the revel was over, the guests, instead of going home in pompous retinue attended by their slaves, determined to enjoy a frolic in the streets. ‘Flown with insolence and wine,’ they persuaded the Emperor to disguise himself in the dress of a simple burgher and to roam with them along the Velabrum and the Subura and every street in which they were likely to meet returning guests.