"Chin up, girl ... shoulders straight!" came in curt admonitions once or twice to the drowsy model.

Whereupon from the furthest corner of the room Licinia would emerge, rod in hand, to emphasise the necessity of keeping awake when a beloved mistress so desired it.

"Let her be, Licinia," said Dea Flavia with angry impatience when for the fifth time now the model fell in a huddled heap, with nose almost touching her knees, and heavy lids falling over sleepy eyes. "It's no use ... there is something in the air to-day. I cannot work.... Phew!...

methinks I feel the approach of thunder."

She threw down her modelling tools with a fretful gesture and then nervily began to destroy her morning's work, patting the clay aimlessly here and there until once more it became a shapeless ma.s.s.

"That lazy baggage hath spoilt thy pleasure," said Licinia gruffly; "but I'll teach her----"

"No, no, good Licinia!" interposed the young girl with a weary smile.

"Teach her nothing to-day.... The air is too heavy for serious lessons.

Send her away and bring me water for my hands."

Then as Licinia--muttering various dark threats--drove the frightened girl before her, Dea Flavia breathed a sigh of relief. Her hands were covered with clay, so she stood quite still waiting for the reappearance of Licinia with the water; and all the while the frown on her face grew darker and the look of trouble in her eyes more p.r.o.nounced.

Soon the old woman returned with a basin full of water in her hands and a white cloth over her arm. With her wonted loving care she washed Dea's hands between her own and dried them on the towel. Dea allowed her to perform this kindly office for her, standing quite still and gazing absently out into vacancy.

"What can I do now for thee, my precious?" asked Licinia anxiously.

"Nothing, Licinia, nothing," replied Dea with a sigh. "Just leave me in peace.... I have a desire for solitude and silence."

It was the old woman's turn to sigh now, for she did not like this unwonted mood of her beloved. Dea Flavia, when in the privacy of her own house, was always gay and cheerful as a bird, prattling of all sorts of things, telling amusing anecdotes to her old nurse and playing light-heartedly with her young slaves, whenever she was not occupied with her artistic work. This frown upon the smooth, white brow was very unusual, and the fretful, impatient gestures were as unwonted as was that dreamy, absent gaze which spoke of anxious, troubled thoughts.

Dea Flavia herself could not understand her own mood. She could not have confided in the faithful old woman, even had she been so minded, for truly she would not have known what to confide.

Her thoughts worried her. They were so insistent, dwelling obstinately on one moment which had flitted by yesterday--the moment when she stood facing the praefect of Rome, and looking into his deep, dark eyes, which then and there had reminded her of a stormy sea suddenly lulled to rest.

It seemed as if nothing now or ever hereafter would chase from her mind the memory of his look and of his rugged voice, softened to infinite gentleness as he said: "I told thee that He died upon the Cross."

She could hear that voice now, even as at this moment from afar a m.u.f.fled sound of thunder went echoing over the hills, and, strive as she might, wherever she looked her eyes were haunted by the vision which he had conjured up of a man with arms outstretched upon a cross, whose might was yet greater than that of Rome.

At the time she had been greatly angered. The praefect had spoken traitorous words, and she had hated him--she hated him still--for that allegiance which he seemed to have given to another. Then, with a quick, elusive trick, memory showed her the ma.s.sive shoulders bent humbly at her feet, tying the strings of her shoe--a simple homage due to the daughter of Caesar--and the sharp pang of wrath once more shot through her heart with the remembrance that he had not deigned to press his lips against her foot.

The man's face and figure haunted her for it was the face and the figure of one whom she had learnt to hate. Yes! She hated him for his treason to Caesar, for his allegiance to that rebel from Galilee; she hated every word which he had spoken in that arrogant, masterful way of his, when he smiled upon her threats and calmly spoke of immortality. She hated the voice which perpetually rang in her ear, the voice with which he spoke of his own soul being in the keeping of G.o.d--of One Whose Empire is mightier than that of Rome.

Yet vaguely still--for she was but a girl--the woman in her was stirred; the power and desire which exists in every woman's soul to conquer that which seems furthest from her reach. She hated the man, and yet within her inmost heart there had sprung the desire to curb and possess his; to disturb the perfect serenity that dwelt in his deep-set eyes, to kindle in them a pa.s.sion which would make of that proud spirit a mere slave to her will.

There was in her just now nothing but the pagan desire to rule, and to break a heart if need be, if she could not otherwise subdue it.

Memory had fanned her wrath. She saw him now as she had seen him yesterday, arrogantly thwarting her will, his bitter tongue lashing her with irony; and now, as yesterday, the blush of humiliation burned her cheeks, and her pride and dignity rose up in pa.s.sionate revolt against the one man who had ever defied her and who had proudly proclaimed his allegiance to a man who was not the Caesar.

That allegiance belonged to Caesar and to his might alone; beyond that there was the House of Caesar, and failing that, nothing but rebellious treachery. And the troubled look grew deeper in Dea Flavia's face, and now she buried her hot cheeks in her hands, for the humiliation which she had endured yesterday from one man seemed to shame her even now.

"I'll break thy will," she murmured, whilst angry tears rose, burning, to her eyes. "I'll shame thy manhood and never rest until I see thee crawling--an abject slave--at the feet of Caesar, who shall kick thee in the face. Caesar and the House of Caesar brook no rivalry in the heart of a Roman patrician."

Her hands dropped from before her face. She threw back her head, and looked straight before her into the darkest corner of the room.

"Jesus of Nazareth, he called thee!" she said slowly and as if speaking to an invisible presence. "And he said at thy call he would give up the world, and suffer death and torture and shame for thee!... Then so be it! And I do defy thee, O man of Galilee! even I, Dea Flavia Augusta, of the imperial House of Caesar! For that man whom I hate and despise, for that man who has defied and shamed me, for that man whose heart and allegiance thou hast filched from Caesar, for him will I do thee battle ... and that heart will I conquer; and it shall be Caesar's and mine--mine--for I will break it and crush it first and then wrest it from thee!"

And even as she spoke, from far away over the hills and beyond the Campania the thunder rolled dully in response.

CHAPTER XIV

"Hast thou an arm like G.o.d? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him."--JOB XL. 9.

A few moments later Licinia came running back into the room.

"Augusta!" she exclaimed excitedly even before she had crossed the threshold. "Augusta! quick! the Caesar!"

Dea Flavia started, for she had indeed been suddenly awakened from a dream. Slowly, and with eyes still vague and thoughtful, she turned to her slave.

"The Caesar?" she repeated, whilst a puzzled frown appeared between her brows and the young blood faded from her cheeks. "The Caesar?"

"Aye," said the old woman hurriedly. "He is in the atrium even now, having just arrived, and his slaves fill the vestibule. He desires speech with thee."

"He does not often come at this hour," said Dea Flavia, whose face had become very white and set at mention of a name which indeed had the power of rousing terror in every heart just now. "Doth he seem angered?"

she asked under her breath.

"No, no," said Licinia rea.s.suringly, "how could he be angered against thee, my pet lamb? But come quickly, dear, to thy robing room; what dress wilt put on to greet the Caesar in?"

"Nay, nay," she said with a tremulous little laugh, "we'll not keep my kinsman waiting. That indeed might anger him. He has been in this room before and hath liked to watch me at my work. Let him come now, an he wills."

Licinia would have protested for she loved to deck her darling out in all the finery that, to her mind, rendered the Augusta more beautiful than a G.o.ddess, but there was no time to say anything for even now the Caesar's voice was heard at the further end of the atrium.

"Do not disturb your mistress. I'll to her myself. Nay! I'll not be announced. 'Tis an informal cousinly visit I am paying her this morning."

"He seemeth in good humour," whispered Dea Flavia, whose little hands were trembling as they made pretence once more of taking up the modelling tools. Licinia hurriedly tried to smooth down the golden hair which had become unruly during the course of the morning, but in her haste only succeeded in completely disarranging it and it fell in wavy ma.s.ses down the young girl's shoulders, all but one plait which remained fixed over her brow like a wide band of gold.

Dea uttered an exclamation of horror and made a quick gesture, trying to capture the recalcitrant curls, even at the very moment that the Emperor Caligula entered the room.

He paused on the threshold and her arms dropped down to her side. Her golden hair fell all round her as she bent her knees making obeisance to the Caesar. There was nothing regal about her now, nothing imperious or proud; she looked just like a child caught unawares at play.

Blushing with confusion she advanced toward her kinsman, and with head bent received his kiss upon her pure forehead. Nor did she shrink at this loathsome contact which would have filled almost any other woman's heart with horror. To her this man was not really human--he was the Caesar--a supernatural being blessed by the G.o.ds, and endowed by them with supreme majesty and power.

"Dismiss thy slaves," he said curtly, "I would have speech with thee."

He had well schooled his turbulent temper to calmness. After Caius Nepos' departure and a final outburst of unbridled violence, he had plunged into a cold bath and given himself over for half an hour to the ministrations of his slaves. Then, cool and refreshed--at any rate outwardly--he had dressed himself in simple robes, and pa.s.sing right through the halls of the Palace of Tiberius which adjoined his own, he had reached the precincts of Dea Flavia's house, which in its turn ab.u.t.ted on that built by Germanicus.

At any other time but the present one--when his frenzied mind was wholly given over to thoughts of the terrible treachery against his own person--he would have been conscious of Dea Flavia's exquisite beauty, as she stood before him, humble with the proud humility of one who has everything to give and nothing to receive; chaste with that pure ignorance which refuses to know what it cannot condone, and withal a perfect woman, imbued with a fascination which no man had ever been able to resist, for it was the fascination of youthful loveliness combined with the stately aloofness of conscious power.

At any other time but this, the unscrupulous voluptuary would have gazed on his beautiful kinswoman with eyes that would have shamed her with their undisguised admiration, and mayhap his look and actions would have placed a severe test on her loyalty and on her respect for him.

But to-day Caligula only saw in her the tool whom conspirators meant to use for their treacherous ends, her loveliness paled in his eyes before the awful suspicion which he had of her guilt, and whilst she stood quietly awaiting his pleasure, he marvelled how much she knew of the traitors' plans and whether her white fingers would effectually thrust the dagger into an a.s.sa.s.sin's hand.

She had dismissed her slaves at his bidding--all unconscious as she was of any danger that might threaten her through him. He waited for a while in silence, then he said abruptly: