“How can I please you?” he exclaimed, and his voice trembled with the only _real_ emotion he perhaps had ever felt. “Oh! Valeria, you know that I love the very ground you tread on.”
She bade Myrrhina bring her some embroidery on which the girl was busied, and thus effectually checked any further outpouring of sentiments which are not conveniently expressed within earshot of a third person. The waiting‐maid took her seat at her mistress’s elbow, her black eyes dancing in malicious mirth.
“Is that all you have to tell me?” resumed Valeria, with a smile in which coquetry, indifference, and conscious power were admirably blended. “Words are but empty air. My favour is reserved for those who win it by deeds.”
“He shall die! I pledge you my word he shall die!” exclaimed the tribune, still misunderstanding the beautiful enigma on which he had set his heart. “I have but spared him till I should know your pleasure, and now his fate is sealed. Ere this time to‐morrow he will have crossed the Styx, and Valeria will repay me with one of her brightest smiles.”
A shudder she could not suppress swept over the smooth white skin, but she suffered no trace of emotion to appear upon her countenance. She had a game to play now, and it must be played steadily and craftily to ensure success. She bade Myrrhina fetch wine and fruit to place before her guest, and while the waiting‐maid crossed the hall on her errand, she suffered the tribune to take her hand once more—nay, even returned its caressing clasp, with an almost imperceptible pressure. He was intoxicated with his success, he felt he was winning at last; and the jewelled cup that Myrrhina brought him, as he thought all too soon, remained for a while suspended in his hand, while he uttered fervent protestations of love, which were received with an equanimity that ought to have convinced him they were hopelessly wasted on his idol.
“You profess much,” said she, “but it costs men little to promise. We have but one faithful lover in the empire, and he is enslaved by a barbarian princess and another man’s wife. Would _you_ have turned back from all the pleasures of Rome, to fight one more campaign against those dreadful Jews, for the sake of Berenice’s sunburnt face?”