"Vah, wretch!" cried the consular; and he spurned Ahenobarbus with his foot. "It is indeed well that you have not married into family of mine! If you can do naught else, you can at least die with dignity as becomes a Roman patrician—and not beg intercession from this woman who has cut herself off from all her kin by disobedience."
"Uncle," cried Cornelia in distress, "must we be foes to the end? Must our last words be of bitterness?"
"Girl," thundered the unbending Lentulus, "when a Roman maiden disobeys, there is no expiation. You are no niece of mine. I care not how you came here. I accept nothing at your hands. I will not hear your story. If I must die, it is to die cursing your name. Go! I have no more words for you!"
But Ahenobarbus caught the skirt of Cornelia's robe, and pleaded and moaned. "Let them imprison him in the lowest dungeons, load him with the heaviest fetters; place upon him the most toilsome labour—only let him still see the light and breathe the air!"
"Uncle," said Cornelia, "I will plead for you despite your wrath—-though little may my effort avail. You are my father's brother, and neither act of yours nor of mine can make you otherwise. But as for you, Lucius Ahenobarbus,"—and her words came hot and thick, as she hissed out her contempt,—"though I beg for your life, know this, that if I despised you less I would not so do. I despise you too much to hate; and if I ask to have you live, it is because I know the pains of a base and ignoble life are a myriad fold more than those of a swift and honourable death. Were I your judge—I would doom you; doom you to live and know the sting of your ignominy!"
She left them; and hatred and pity, triumph and anguish, mingled within her. She went to the young King Ptolemæus and besought him to spare the prisoners; the lad professed his inability to take a step without the initiative of Pothinus. She went to Pothinus; the eunuch listened to her courteously, then as courteously told her that grave reasons of state made it impossible to comply with the request—much, as he blandly added, it would delight him personally to gratify her. Cornelia could do no more. Pratinas she would not appeal to, though he had great influence with Pothinus. She went back to her rooms to spend the day with Fabia, very heavy of heart. The world, as a whole, she beheld as a thing very evil; treachery, guile, wrath, hatred, were everywhere. The sight of Ahenobarbus had filled her with loathsome memories of past days. The sunlight fell in bright warm panels over the rich rugs on the floor of her room. The sea-breeze sweeping in from the north blew fresh and sweet; out against the azure light, into which she could gaze, a swarm of swallows was in silhouette—black dots crawling along across the dome of light. Out in one of the public squares of the city great crowds of people were gathering. Cornelia knew the reason of the concourse—the heads of two noble Romans, just decapitated, were being exposed to the gibes and howls of the coarse Greek and Egyptian mob. And Cornelia wished that she were herself a swallow, and might fly up into the face of the sun, until the earth beneath her had vanished.
But while she leaned from the parapet by the window of the room, footsteps sounded on the mosaic pavement without; the drapery in the doorway was flung aside; Agias entered, and after him—another.
II
Drusus ran to Cornelia and caught her in his arms; and she—neither fainted nor turned pale, but gave a little laugh, and cried softly:—
"I always knew you were coming!"