“O how gracious!” sneered the girl,—“taken up like Trygdeus.”
“Domitia!” exclaimed her mother, then at once perceiving that the allusion was lost on the uneducated prince, she said:—
“Quite so, on the wings of the Bird of Jove.”[7]
The young man became crimson. He was convinced that there was some bitter sneer in the words of Domitia, and he was ashamed at his inability to comprehend the allusion.
“What I intend for you,” said he, moving from the doorway to where he could observe her face, “what I intend for you is what there is not another woman in Rome who would not give her jewels to obtain.”
“Then I pray you address yourself to them. Pay your debts with their subscriptions, and leave me who am content to be disregarded, in the tranquillity I so love—with my husband, Ælius Lamia.”
“Lamia!” laughed Domitian. “You are to be divorced from him. Your mother is willing.”
“My mother has no more power over me. I am out of the paternal family.”
“You will consent yourself.”
“Who will make me?”