Aurelius begged his guests to be seated and led Octavia to the seat of honor at the upper end of the table. On her left hand her daughter, the fair Claudia, took her seat; Aurelius sat on the other hand and at the side of the table. Herodianus and Baucis, who was still very much discomposed, took their places at the other end of the table and at a respectful distance.
“You must take what little I can offer you, ladies,” said the Batavian. “We Northmen are plain folks....”
“You are joking!” interrupted Octavia. “Do you imagine, that all the inhabitants of the imperial city are gourmands after the fashion of Gavius Apicius?”[39]
“Well,” said Aurelius in some confusion, “we know at any rate that Rome is the acknowledged mistress of all the arts of refined enjoyment, and above all of the most extravagant luxury in food....”
“Not half so much so as you believe,” said Octavia. “You gentlemen from the provinces fall, without exception, into that strange mistake. A Roman lady in the same way is to you the type of all that is atrocious, because a few reckless women have made themselves talked about. You forget that it is in the very nature of virtue to remain concealed and ignored. But tell me, my lord, whence do you procure this delicious honey?”
“It comes from Hymettus,”[40] replied Aurelius, who was somewhat disconcerted by the lady’s airs and manners. “My friend here, the worthy Herodianus, procured it at Panormus.”
“Ah!” said Octavia, raising a polished emerald[41] mounted in gold to her eye, for she was short-sighted: “Your friend understands the subject, that I must confess--do you not think so, Claudia my love?”
The young lady answered with vague abstraction, for some minutes she had sat lost in thought. She had hardly touched the delicacies that had been set before her, and she now silently waved a refusal to the slave who offered the much-praised honey. Even the vigorous struggle in which Herodianus was engaged with an enormous lobster[42] failed to bring a smile to her lips, and yet her expression had never been brighter or more radiant. Once and again her eyes rested on the face of the young Batavian, who was engaged in such eager conversation with her mother, and then they returned to the loop-hole in the cabin roof, where the pane of crystal[43] shone like a diamond in the sunshine.