"Not in body," went on Cornelia, still holding on to him. "But here, sit down on the grass. Let me hold your hands. You do not mind. I want to talk with you. No, don't interrupt. I must tell you. I have been here in Præneste only a week. I wanted to get away from Baiæ.[17] I was afraid to stay there with my mother."
"Afraid to stay at that lovely seashore house with your mother!" exclaimed Drusus, by no means unwilling to sit as entreated, but rather bewildered in mind.
"I was afraid of Lucius Ahenobarbus, the consular[18] Domitius's second son. I don't like him! there!" and Cornelia's grey eyes lit up with menacing fire.
"Afraid of Lucius Ahenobarbus!" laughed Drusus. "Well, I don't think I call him a very dear friend. But why should he trouble you?"
"It was ever since last spring, when I was in the new theatre[19] seeing the play, that he came around, thrust himself upon me, and tried to pay attentions. Then he has kept them up ever since; he followed us to Baiæ; and the worst of it is, my mother and uncle rather favour him. So I had Stephanus, my friend the physician, say that sea air was not good for me, and I was sent here. My mother and uncle will come in a few days, but not that fellow Lucius, I hope. I was so tired trying to keep him off."
"I will take care of the knave," said Drusus, smiling. "So this is the trouble? I wonder that your mother should have anything to do with such a fellow. I hear in letters that he goes with a disreputable gang. He is a boon companion with Marcus Læca, the old Catilinian,[20] who is a smooth-headed villain, and to use a phrase of my father's good friend Cicero—'has his head and eyebrows always shaved, that he may not be said to have one hair of an honest man about him.' But he will have to reckon with me now. Now it is my turn to talk. Your long story has been very short. Nor is mine long. My old uncle Publius Vibulanus is dead. I never knew him well enough to be able to mourn him bitterly. Enough, he died at ninety; and just as I arrive at Puteoli comes a message that I am his sole heir. His freedmen knew I was coming, embalmed the body, and wait for me to go to Rome to-morrow to give the funeral oration and light the pyre. He has left a fortune fit to compare with that of Crassus[21]—real estate, investments, a lovely villa at Tusculum. And now I—no, we—are wealthy beyond avarice. Shall we not thank the Gods?"
"I thank them for nothing," was her answer; then more shyly, "except for your own coming; for, Quintus, you—you—will marry me before very long?"
"What hinders?" cried the other, in the best of spirits. "To-morrow I go to Rome; then back again! And then all Præneste will flock to our marriage train. No, pout no more over Lucius Ahenobarbus. He shan't pay disagreeable attentions. And now over to the old villa; for Mamercus is eating his heart out to see me!"
And away they went arm in arm.
Drusus's head was in the air. He had resolved to marry Cornelia, cost what it might to his desires. He knew now that he was affianced to the one maiden in the world quite after his own heart.