Silverius, Cethegus, and Rusticiana went together up the steps which led to the crypt of the basilica of St. Sebastian. From thence they passed through the church into the adjoining house of the archdeacon. On arriving there, Silverius convinced himself that all the inhabitants of the house were asleep, with the exception of an old slave, who was watching in the atrium near a half-extinguished lamp. At a sign from his master he lighted a silver lamp which stood near him, and pressed a secret spring in the marble wainscot of the room.
A slab of marble turned on its hinges and allowed the priest who had taken up the lamp to pass, with his two companions, into a small, low chamber, and then quickly and noiselessly closed behind them, leaving no trace of an opening.
The small chamber, now simply adorned by a tall wooden crucifix, a fall-stool, and a few plain Christian symbols on a golden background, had evidently, as the cushioned shelf which ran round the walls showed, served for those small banquets of one or two guests, whose unrestrained comfort Horace has so often celebrated in song. At the time of which I speak it was the private chamber in which the archdeacon brooded over his most secret priestly or worldly plans.
Cethegus silently seated himself on the lectus (a small couch), throwing the superficial glance of a critic at a Mosaic picture inserted into the opposite wall. While the priest was occupied in pouring wine from an amphora with large curving handles into some cups which stood ready, and placing a metal dish of fruit on the bronze tripod table, Rusticiana stood opposite Cethegus, measuring him with an expression of astonishment and indignation.
Scarcely forty years of age, this woman showed traces of a rare--and rather manly--beauty, which had suffered less from time than from violent passions. Here and there her raven-black braids were streaked with white, not grey, and strong lines lay round the mobile corners of her mouth.
She leaned her left hand on the table, and meditatively stroked her brow with her right, while she gazed at Cethegus. At last she spoke.
"Tell me, tell me, Cethegus, what power is this that you have over me? I no more love you. I ought to hate you. I do hate you. And yet I must involuntarily obey you, like a bird under the fascinating eye of a snake. And you place my hand, this hand, in that of that miserable man! Say, you evil-doer, what is this power?"
Cethegus was inattentively silent. At last, leaning back, he said: "Habit, Rusticiana, habit."
"Truly, 'tis habit! The habit of a slavery that has existed ever since I can remember. It was natural that as a girl I should admire the handsome son of our neighbours; that I believed in your love was excusable, did you not kiss me? And who could--at that time--know that you were incapable of loving anything--even yourself? That the wife of Boëthius did not smother the mad passion which, as if in sport, you again fanned into a flame, was a sin; but God and the Church have forgiven it. But that I should still, after knowing for years your utter heartlessness, when the glow of passion is extinguished in my veins, that I should still most blindly follow your demoniac will--that is folly enough to make me laugh aloud."
And she laughed wildly, and pressed her right hand to her brow.