The tribune knew women thoroughly. He could plead no lack of experience, for ignorance of that intricate and [pg 174]puzzling labyrinth, a woman’s heart. He had, indeed, broken more than one in the process of examination, and yet the boy Automedon, sitting by his side in the chariot, with the wind lifting his golden curls, would hardly have been guilty of so many false movements, such mistakes both of tactics and strategy, as disgraced his lord’s conduct of the unequal warfare he waged with Valeria. Yet this engrossing affection, stained and selfish as it was, constituted perhaps the one redeeming quality of the tribune’s character; afforded the only incentive by which his better and manlier feelings could be aroused.
Possibly Valeria expected him. Women have strange instincts on such matters, which seldom deceive. She was dressed with the utmost magnificence, as though conscious that simplicity could have no charms for Placidus, and sat in a splendour nearly regal, keeping Myrrhina and the rest of her maidens within call. Lovers are acute observers; as he walked up the cool spacious court to greet her, he saw that she was gentler, and more languid than her wont; she looked wearied and unhappy, as though she, too, acknowledged the sorrows and the weaknesses of her sex. Lover-like, he thought this unusual shade of softness became her well.
For days she had been fighting with her own heart, and she had suffered as such undisciplined natures must. The strife had left its traces on her pale proud face, and she felt a vague unacknowledged yearning for repose. The wild-bird had beat her wings and ruffled her plumage till she was tired, and a skilful fowler would have taken advantage of the reaction to lure her into his net. Perhaps she had been thinking what happiness it must be to have one in the world in whom she could confide, on whom she could rely; one loyal manly nature on which to rest her woman’s heart, with all its caprices, and weaknesses, and capacity for love; perhaps she may have been even touched by the tribune’s unshaken devotion to herself, by the constancy which could withstand the allurements of vice, and even the distractions of political intrigue; perhaps to-day she disliked him less than on any former occasion, though it could hardly have been for his sake that her eye was heavy, and her bosom heaved. If so, whatever favour he had unconsciously gained, was as unconsciously destroyed by his own hand. He approached her with an air of assumed confidence, that masked only too well the agitation of his real feelings.
“Fair Valeria,” said he, “I have obeyed your commands, and I come like a faithful servant to claim my reward.”
Now a woman’s commands are not always intended to be literally obeyed. Under any circumstances she seldom likes to be reminded of them; and as for claiming anything from Valeria, why the very word roused all the rebellion that was dormant in her nature. At that instant rose on her mind’s eye the scene in the amphitheatre, the level sand, the tossing sea of faces, the hoarse roar of the crowd, the strong white limbs and the yellow locks lying helpless beneath a dark vindictive face, and a glitter of uplifted steel. How she hated the conqueror then! How she hated him now! She was clasping a bracelet carelessly on her arm, the fair round arm he admired so much, and that never looked so fair and round as in this gesture. It was part of his torture to make herself as attractive as she could. Her cold eyes chilled him at once.
“I had forgotten all about it,” said she. “I am obliged to you for reminding me that I am in your debt.”
Though somewhat hurt, he answered courteously, “There can be no debt from a mistress to her slave. You know, Valeria, that all of mine, even to my life, is at your disposal.”
“Well?” she asked, with a provoking persistency of misapprehension.
He began to lose his head; he, ordinarily so calm, and cunning, and self-reliant.
“You bade me enter on a difficult and dangerous undertaking. It was perhaps a lady’s caprice, the merest possible whim. But you expressed a wish, and I never rested till I had accomplished it.”