“I would have you thrust forth into the street.”
“To be murdered—torn to pieces by the blood-thirsty mob?”
“It is to save myself.”
“Thyself! I do thee no harm.”
“Do not attend to her. It is childish, maidenly timidity,” said Duilia, frowning at Domitia and shaking her finger at her. “She knows that, to screen you, we run great risks ourselves. We may be denounced—we may.—As the Gods love me! There is no saying what we may be called on to suffer. But I say, perish all the family rather than offend against hospitality.”
“Mother,” said Domitia. Her face was white as ashes. “Send him forth. If he were not a coward, a mean coward, he would not come here, to the house of two women, and shelter himself behind their skirts. Titus Flavius Domitianus, dost thou call thyself a man?”
He looked furtively at the girl, and muttered something that was unintelligible.
“If thou art a man, go forth, run us not into danger. If thou tarry here—I esteem thee as the basest of men.”
“I praise the Gods!” said Longa Duilia, in towering wrath, “she does not command in this house. That do I; and when I say welcome, there you stay, and she shall not gainsay me.”
“Mother—to welcome him, is to exile, to destroy me.”