And, with the courtesy of a gentleman of the world, he offered Fabia an armchair.
"Caius Curio," said the Vestal, wasting very few words, "do you know my nephew, Quintus Drusus of Præneste?"
"It is an honour to acknowledge friendship with such an excellent young man," said Curio, bowing.
"I am glad to hear so. I understand that he has already suffered no slight calamity for adhering to your party."
"Vah!" and the tribune shrugged his shoulders. "Doubtless he has had a disagreeable time with the consul-elect, but from all that I can hear, the girl he lost was hardly one to make his life a happy one. It's notorious the way she has displayed her passion for young Lucius Ahenobarbus, and we all know what kind of a man he is. But I may presume to remark that your ladyship would hardly come here simply to remind me of this."
"No," replied Fabia, directly, "I have come here to appeal to you to do something for me which Marcellus the consul was too drunk to try to accomplish if he would."
Fabia had struck the right note. Only a few days before Appius Claudius, the censor, had tried to strike Curio's name from the rolls of the Senate. Piso, the other censor, had resisted. There had been an angry debate in the Senate, and Marcellus had inveighed against the Cæsarian tribune, and had joined in a furious war of words. The Senate had voted to allow Curio to keep his seat; and the anti-Cæsarians had paraded in mourning as if the vote were a great calamity.
Curio's eyes lit up with an angry fire.
"Lump of filth! Who was he, to disoblige you!"
"You will understand," said Fabia, still quietly; and then briefly she told of the conspiracy against the life of Drusus, so far as she had gathered it.