Domitia started up, anger, resentment, hatred flared in her eyes, stiffened the muscles of her whole face, made her hair bristle above her brow.
“He a right, mother! he who tore me away from my dear Lamia, to whom I had given my whole heart, to whom I had been united by your sanction and our union blessed by the Gods! He who violated hospitality, the most sacred rights that belong to a house, who repaid your kindness in saving his life—when he was hunted like a wolf, by breaking and destroying, by trampling under his accursed heel, the brittle, innocent heart of the daughter of her who had protected him! No, mother, I owed him no love. I have never given him any, because he never had a right to any. Mother—this must have an end.”
She sank into silence that continued for some while.
Duilia did not speak. She did not desire another such explosion, lest the slaves should hear and betray what had been said. Presently, however, she whispered coaxingly:—
“My dear Domitia, you are overwrought. You have eaten something that has affected your temper. I find gherkins always disagree with me. There, go and take a little ginger in white wine, and sleep it off.”
Domitia rose, stiffly, as though all her joints were wooden.
“Yes, mother, I will go. But there is one thing I desire of thee. I have long coveted it, as a remembrancer of my father—may I take it?”
“Anything—anything you like.”
Domitia went to the wall and took down the sword of Corbulo, there suspended.
“It is this, mother. I need it.”