"Oh, Livia," said Fabia, "I feel as though it were of no use to live good and pure in this world! Who knows what trouble may come to me from this day's doings? And why should they plot against your brother's dear life? But I mustn't talk so." And she called for her attendants to escort her abroad.
CHAPTER VIII
"WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK"
I
Cornelia had surmised correctly that Pratinas, not Lucius Ahenobarbus, would be the one to bring the plot against Drusus to an issue. Lucius had tried in vain to escape from the snares the wily intriguer had cast about him. His father had told him that if he would settle down and lead a moderately respectable life, Phormio should be paid off. And with this burden off his mind, for reformation was very easily promised, Lucius had time to consider whether it was worth his while to mix in a deed that none of Pratinas's casuistry could quite convince him was not a foul, unprovoked murder, of an innocent man. The truth was, Ahenobarbus was desperately in love with Cornelia, and had neither time nor desire to mingle in any business not connected with the pursuit of his "tender passion." None of his former sweethearts—and he had had almost as many as he was years old—were comparable in his eyes to her. She belonged to a different world from that of the Spanish dancers, the saucy maidens of Greece, or even the many noble-born Roman women that seemed caught in the eddy of Clodia's fashionable whirlpool. Lucius frankly told himself that he would want to be divorced from Cornelia in five years—it would be tedious to keep company longer with a goddess. But for the present her vivacity, her wit, her bright intelligence, no less than her beauty, charmed him. And he was rejoiced to believe that she was quite as much ensnared by his own attractions. He did not want any unhappy accident to mar the smooth course which was to lead up to the marriage in no distant future. He did not need Drusus's money any longer to save him from bankruptcy. The legacy would be highly desirable, but life would be very pleasant without it. Lucius was almost induced by his inward qualms to tell Pratinas to throw over the whole matter, and inform Dumnorix that his services were not needed.
It was at this juncture that Cornelia committed an error, the full consequences of which were, to her, happily veiled. In her anxiety to discover the plot, she had made Lucius believe that she was really pining for the news of the murder of Drusus. Cornelia had actually learned nothing by a sacrifice that tore her very heart out; but her words and actions did almost irreparable harm to the cause she was trying to aid.
"And you have never given me a kiss," Lucius had said one morning, when he was taking leave of Cornelia in the atrium of the Lentuli. "Will you ever play the siren, and lure me to you? and then devour, as it were, your victim, not with your lips, but with your eyes?"
"Eho! Not so bold!" replied Cornelia, drawing back. "How can I give you what you wish, unless I am safe from that awful Polyphemus up in Præneste?"
When Ahenobarbus went away, his thoughts were to the following effect: "I had always thought Cornelia different from most women; but now I can see that, like them all, she hates and hates. To say to her, 'Drusus is dead,' will be a more grateful present than the largest diamond Lucullus brought from the East, from the treasure of King Tigranes."
And it was in such a frame of mind that he met Pratinas by appointment at a low tavern on the Vicus Tuscus. The Greek was, as ever, smiling and plausible.