Agrippina was of course admitted, and left her attendants at the door. As the lovely haughty lady entered, they could not help observing, even by the dim light of the two silver lamps which had just been lit, that a change had passed over her features, and that she had been weeping. Haughty they still were, but wrath and disappointment and failure, purchased at the cost of crime, had stamped them with an expression of agony, as though she wore the brand of Cain. When she heard of the sudden illness of Britannicus, she divined its cause too well. While her power was waning so rapidly, she had been no longer able to maintain the elaborate system of espionage which had helped her when she was Empress; but she, too, was aware that Pollio had visited Locusta, and the misgiving had seized her that the poison might be meant for herself. That it turned out to be for Britannicus was hardly less appalling to her. She felt that her imprudence had made Nero jealous of him, and that his death would deprive her of her last resource. She rejoiced, therefore, unfeignedly at the boy’s recovery, and when she visited him he saw that, for the first time, she spoke with genuine kindness to Octavia, and that her expressions of pity and condolence to himself were sincere. There was no feigning in the hot teardrops which fell on his cheek when she kissed him, and as he lay there, weak and pale, she felt, with deepening remorse for the wrongs which she had inflicted on him, that he did not shrink from her embrace.
Nero, too, sent messages of enquiry to ‘his beloved brother’ by his freedman, Claudius Etruscus. As he heard them, the old spirit of Britannicus flashed out.
‘Tell Cæsar,’ he said, ‘that this time his poi--’
Before the word could be spoken, Titus with hasty gesture placed his hand over his friend’s mouth, and Agrippina, knowing well that every syllable would be reported, and interpreted in the most malignant manner, turned her queenly head to the freedman who had brought the message.
‘Tell the Emperor that his brother is much better, but is still light-headed. Claudius Etruscus,’ she said, ‘you pass for an honest man. I pray you, do not mention to Nero anything which Britannicus has spoken in his delirium.’