“What! are we not to return to Rome? O Lamia, I was a child when I left it, but I love our house at Gabii, and the lake there, and the garden.”
“It is worse than that, Domitia.” He seated himself on the margin of a basin, and nervously, not knowing what he did, drew his finger in the water, describing letters, and chasing the darting fish.
“Domitia, you belong to an ancient race. You are a Roman, and have the blood of the Gods in your veins. So nerve thy heroic soul to hear the worst.”
And still he thrust after the frightened fish with his finger, and she looked down, and saw them dart like shadows in the pool, and her own frightened thoughts darted as nimbly and as blindly about in her head.
“Why, how now, Lamia? Thou art descended by adoption from the Earth-shakes, and tremblest as a girl! See—a tear fell into the basin. Oh, Lucius! My very kid rears in surprise.”
“Do not mock. Prepare for the worst. Think what would be the sorest ill that could befall thee.”
Domitia withdrew her eyes from the fish and the water surface rippled by his finger, and looked now with real terror in his face.
“My father?”
Then Lamia raised his dripping finger and pointed to the house.
She looked, and saw that the gardener had torn down boughs of cypress, and therewith was decorating the doorway.