"Well?"
"Or did you expect to find the fair Roxana with the prefect's wife?"
"Roxana?" asked Verus, with a cunning smile. "Roxana! Why she was the wife of Alexander the Great, and is long since dead, but I care only for the living, and when I left the merry tumult in the streets it was simply and solely—"
"You excite my curiosity."
"Because my prophetic heart promised me, fairest Balbilla, that I should find you here."
And that you call honest!" cried the poetess, hitting the praetor a blow with the stick of the ostrich-feather fan she held in her hand. "Only listen, Lucilla, your husband declares he came here for my sake." The praetor looked reproachfully at the speaker, but she whispered:
"Due punishment for a dishonest man." Then, raising her voice, she said:
"Do you know, Lucilla, that if I remain unmarried, your husband is not wholly innocent in the matter."
"Alas! yes, I was born too late for you," interrupted Verus, who knew very well what the poetess was about to say.
"Nay—no misunderstanding!" cried Balbilla. "For how can a woman venture upon wedlock when she cannot but fear the possibility of getting such a husband as Verus."