Flaccus took her hand and run his palm over her small knuckles.
"_Eheu!_" he said. "I shall not be happy to see thee wedded--"
"Nor shall I; like the fabulous maiden who weeps on the eve of her marriage, I shall in good earnest heave a sigh over the days of my freedom. Alas! the mind grows old young, that learns the fullness of life early. There are as many ashes on my heart as there are in this bulging temple of thine, Avillus."
"Dost thou love this--boy? Beshrew him, let him have no name!"
"How? Dost thou love the usurer that lends thee money, Flaccus?"
"Sundry old memories; perchance the image of a consul, less portly, less purple, less stiff--and less imposing!"
"To one that was thy dear in younger days. To one who does not remember the sprightlier man, thou couldst be less charming."
"Younger? Now, how much younger? Six years at most! Thou hast not changed in that time; why should I?"
"O Avillus; between the stage of the sun at noon and the previous hour, there is no appreciable change. But mark the difference an hour makes at sunset. But why this inquisition? Has Eros pierced thee in a new spot?"
"Pierced me twenty years ago and his arrow sticketh yet in the wound it made!"
"What! Spitted on an arrow during all those days thou didst love me?"
"But Eros has arrows and arrows, of many kinds, and two diverse barbs may with all consistency find lodgment at once in a heart. But of myself we may speak later; at present, I am moved to labor with thee for thine own welfare. Why wilt thou marry this boy, for his purse, when there are men in pain for thy favor?"
She studied him a moment. "I can not take thee back, Flaccus; love's ashes can not be refired though the breath of Eros himself blew upon them."
"Impetuous conclusion; hast thou forgotten the twenty-year-old wound which I confessed just now? I am this moment only an arbiter for my better--my betters--"
"I shall keep the twenty-year-old barb in mind," she said. "Methinks it is that which pricks thee into activity for me."
"A wiser surmise than the first. But curb thy frivolous spirit; I am weighted with the business of the great. What dost thou here, O divinity, away from Rome and the arms of Cæsar?"
"Dost thou forget that we were invited away, because of my father's unfortunate preference of Sejanus, during the days of Sejanus' greatness?"