"Do not ask me!" replied Aurelia in the same tone; "she was a strange girl ever; and I cannot say, if she likes this task that you have put upon her."
"More wine, ho! bring more wine! Drink we each man to his mistress, each lady to her lover in secrecy and silence!" cried the master of the revel. "Fill up! fill up! let it be pure, and sparkling to the brim."
But Fulvia, irritated a little by what had passed, would not be silent; although she saw that Catiline was annoyed at the character the conversation had assumed, and ere the slave had filled up the beakers she addressed Lucia—
"And wherefore, dearest, would you love Cato? I could as soon love the statue of Accius Nævius, with his long beard, on the steps of the Comitium; he were scarce colder, or less comely than your Cato."
"Because to love virtue is still something, if we be vicious even; and, if I am not virtuous myself, at least I have not lost the sense that it were good to be so!"
"I never knew that you were not virtuous, my Lucia," interposed her mother; "affectionate and pious you have ever been."
"And obedient!" added Catiline, with strong emphasis. "Your mother, my Lucia, and myself, return thanks to the Gods daily for giving us so good a child."
"Do you?" replied the girl, scornfully; "the Gods must have merry times, then, for that must needs make them laugh! But good or bad, I respect the great; and, if I ever love, it will be, as I said, a great and a good man."
"I fear you will never love me, Lucia," whispered Paullus in her ear, unheard amid the clash of knives and flagons, and the pealing of a fresh strain of music, which ushered in the king of fish, the grand conger, garnished with prawns and soused in pungent sauce.
"Wherefore not?" she replied, meeting his eye with a furtive sidelong glance.