"Your excellency bids me hope!" cried Drusus.
"I bid you love," replied Cæsar, smiling. "I bid you go to Baiæ, for there I have heard your dear lady waits her long-absent Odysseus, and tell her that all will be well in time; for Cæsar will make it so."
"For Cæsar will make it so," repeated the young man, half-unconscious that he was speaking aloud.
"For Cæsar will make it so," reiterated the proconsul, as though Zeus on Olympus were nodding his head in awful and irrevocable promise.
And the proconsul took both of his guest's hands in his own, and said, with seriousness:—
"Quintus Drusus, why did you abandon your bride to support my cause?"
"Because," replied the other, with perfect frankness, "I should not be worthy to look Cornelia in the face, if I did not sacrifice all to aid the one Roman who can save the state."
"Young man," replied the proconsul, "many follow me for selfish gain, many follow me to pay off a grudge, but few follow me because they believe that because Cæsar is ambitious, he is ambitious as a god should be ambitious—to bestow the greatest benefits possible upon the men entrusted to his charge. I know not what thread for me the Fates have spun; but this I know, that Cæsar will never prove false to those who trust him to bring righteousness to Rome, and peace to the world."
That night, as Drusus was retiring, Curio spoke to him:—