"Dea Flavia, what is thine age?"

She looked up at him, smiling and puzzled.

"Some twenty years, great Caesar," she replied, "but of a truth I had not kept count."

"Twenty years?" he retorted, "then 'tis high time that I chose a husband for thee."

This time she looked up at him boldly, and although in her glance there was all the respect due to the immortal Caesar, yet was there no show of humility in her att.i.tude as she threw back the heavy ma.s.ses of her hair and drew up her slender figure to its full stately height.

"Was it to tell me this," she asked simply, "that the greatest of Caesars sought his servant's house to-day?"

"In part," he rejoined curtly, "and I would hear thine answer."

"My lord has not deigned to ask a question?"

"Art prepared to accept the husband whom I, thine Emperor will choose for thee?"

"In all things do I give thee honour and reverence, O Caesar," she replied, "but----"

"But what?"

"But I had no thought of marriage."

"No thought of marriage!" he retorted roughly as, unable to sit still, hara.s.sed by rage and doubt, he once more started on that restless walk of his up and down the room.

She watched him with great wondering eyes. That something serious lay behind his questionings was of course obvious. He had not paid her this matutinal visit for the sole purpose of pa.s.sing the time of day; and she did not like this strange mood of his nor his reference to a topic over which he had not worried her hitherto.

In truth the thought of marriage had never entered her head, even though Licinia--with constant garrulousness--had oft made covert allusions to that coming time. She knew--for it had been instilled into her from every side ever since her father had left her under the tutelage of the Caesar--that she must eventually obey him, if one day he desired that she should marry.

A young patrician girl would never dream of rebellion against the power of a father or a guardian, and when that guardian was the Caesar himself and the girl was of the imperial house, the very thought of disobedience savoured of sacrilege.

But hitherto that question had loomed ahead in Dea Flavia's dreams of the future only as very shadowy and vague. She had never given a single thought to any of the young men who paid her homage, and their efforts at winning her favours had only caused her to smile.

She had felt herself to be unconquerable, even unattainable, and Caligula, before this mad frenzy had fully seized hold of him, had--in his own brutish way--indulged her in this, allowing her to lead her own life and secretly laughing at the machinations that went on around him to obtain the most coveted matrimonial prize in Rome.

Now suddenly this happy state of things was to come to an end; her freedom, on which she looked as her most precious possession, was to be taken roughly from her. One of the men whom she had despised, one of that set of libertines, of idle voluptuaries who had dangled round her skirts whilst casting covetous eyes upon her fortune, was to become her master, her supreme lord, and she--a slave to his desires and to his pa.s.sions.

Strangely enough the thought of it just now was peculiarly horrible to her--the thought of what the Caesar's wish might mean--the inevitableness of it all nauseated her until she felt sick and faint, and the walls of the room began to swing round her so that she had to steady herself on her feet with a mighty effort of will, lest she should fall.

She knew the Caesar well enough to realise that if he had absolutely set his mind on her marriage nothing would make him swerve from the thought.

If he once desired a thing he would never rest night or day until his wish had been fulfilled.

Men and women of Rome knew that. Patricians and plebs, senators and slaves, had died horrible deaths because the Caesar had demanded and they had merely thought to disobey.

Therefore it was with wide-open, terror-filled eyes that she watched that tyrannical master in his restless walk up and down the room.

Outside greater darkness had gathered, heavy clouds obscured the light, and the gorgeous figure of the Caesar now and then vanished into the dark angles of the room, reappearing a moment later like some threatening ghoul that comes and goes, blown by the wind which foretells the coming storm.

After a while Caligula paused in his walk and stood close beside her, looking as straight as he could into her pale face.

"No thought of marriage?" he repeated, with one of his mirthless laughs, "no thought, mayhap, of the husband whom I would choose for thee? No doubt there is even now lurking somewhere in this palace a young gallant who alone has the right to aspire to Dea Flavia's grace."

"My lord is pleased to jest," she said coolly, "and knows as well as I do that no patrician can boast of a single favour obtained from me."

"Then 'tis on a slave thou hast chosen to smile," he said roughly.

Then as she did not deign to make reply to this insult, he continued:

"Come! Art mute that thou dost not speak when Caesar commands?"

"What does my lord wish me to say?"

"Hast a lover, girl?"

"No, my lord."

"Thou liest."

"Did I deceive my lord in this, then had I not the courage to look boldly in the Caesar's face."

"Bah!" he said with a snarl, "I mistrust that maidenly reserve which men call pride, and I, clever coquetry. The women of Rome have realised, fortunately by now, that they are the slaves of their masters, to be bought and sold as he directs. The wife must learn that she is the slave of her husband, the daughter that she belongs to the father; the women of the House of Caesar that they belong to me."

"It is a hard lesson my lord would teach to one half of his subjects."

"It is," he said with brutal cynicism, "but I like teaching it. I hope to live long enough--nay! I mean to live long enough--to establish a marriage market in Rome, where the lords of the earth can buy what women they want openly, for so many sesterces, as they can their cattle and their pigs."

She recoiled from the man a little at these words and a blush of shame slowly rose to her cheek. But she retorted calmly:

"The G.o.ds do speak through Caesar's mouth and he frames the laws even as they wish."

Her words flattered his egregious vanity which had even as great, if not a greater, hold upon him than his tyrannical temper. He knew that to this proud girl he was as a G.o.d, and that her respect for his Caesarship made her blind to every one of his faults, but this additional simple testimony from her pure lips caused him to relent towards her, and quite instinctively made him curb the violent grossness of his tongue.

"Thou speakest truly, O Dea Flavia," he said complacently. "The G.o.ds will, when the time comes, speak through my mouth and make known their will through my dictates even as they have done hitherto--even as they do at this moment when I tell thee that I desire to see thee married."

"My lord hath spoken," she said calmly.

"Do not think, O Dea Flavia," he continued, carried away by his own eloquence, "that I desire aught but thy happiness. If I decide to give thee for wife to a man, it shall only be to one who is worthy of thee in every respect. Thou shalt help me to choose him ... for I have not yet made my choice ... he shall testify before thee as to his n.o.bility and his bravery.... An thou dost a.s.sure me that thou hast not yet bestowed thy regard on any man----"

He paused midway in his phrase with indrawn breath, waiting for her reply. She gave it firmly and without hesitation.

"I have cast my eyes on no man, my lord, and have no desire to marry."

"Wouldst consecrate thy virginity to Vesta then?" he asked with a sneer.

"Rather that," she replied, "if my lord would so deign to command."

"Tush!" he broke in impatiently. "Herein thou dost offend the G.o.ds and me! 'Tis impious to waste thy beauty in barren singleness; the G.o.ds hate the solitary maid unless she be ill-favoured and unpleasing to every man. Thou of the House of Caesar hast a mission to fulfil and canst not fulfil it thus in isolation, fashioning clay figures that have no life which they can consecrate to Caesar. But have no fear, for I, thy lord, do watch over thy future--the man whom I will choose for thee will be worthy of thy smiles."