“That is but an hour hence. Be it so. Come, Lamia. Thou shalt row me on the lake till Elymas call.”
“So be it,” said Lucius; and as they withdrew, he added, “I like that not. If it pleased the gods to show us what is in store, then they would reveal it to us. I mistrust me, this man is either an impostor or he deals with the spirits of evil.”
“Nay, think not so. Why should not the Truth lie behind seven veils, and if so, and we are able, why not pluck away those veils?”
“In good sooth, Domitia, thou hast more daring in thy little soul than have I.”
The girl and Lucius Lamia had been so much together in Syria, that they had come to regard each other with the affection of brother and sister. In Greek life the females occupied a separate portion of the house to the males, and did not partake of meals with them. There was no common family life.
Old Roman domestic arrangements had been very different from this. There the wife and mother occupied a place of dignity, with her daughters around her, and sat and span in the atrium, where also the men assembled. She prepared the meals, and partook of them with her husband, and the sisters with their brothers. The only difference between them at table was that the men reclined to eat, whereas the women sat on stools. But this home life, which had been so wholesome and so happy, in the luxury and wealth of the age at the fall of the Commonwealth and the rise of Imperialism, had become an element of demoralization. For the conversation of the men had grown shameless, the exhibitions at banquets of coarse drunkenness, and of dancing girls, and the singing of ribald songs by musicians, had driven away shame from the cheeks of the women, and corrupted the freshness of the children’s innocence.
Yet there were, through even the worst periods, households in which the healthy old Roman simplicity and familiarity between the sexes remained, good fathers and mothers who screened their children’s eyes from evil sights, devoted husbands and wives full of mutual reverence. Such had been the house of Corbulo, whether in Rome, or in Syria. He had been a strict and honorable soldier, and a strict and honorable father in his family.
Thus it was that Lucius Lamia, and Domitia had seen much of each other, and that affection for each other mingled with respect had grown up naturally and vigorously in their hearts.
And now Lucius was paddling on the glassy tarn. He used but little action. Occasionally he dipped the paddles, then allowed the skiff to glide forward till she ceased to be moving, when again he propelled her with one stroke. He was musing; so also was Domitia.
All at once he roused himself.