efore he approached her almost with deference and forced his rough
voice to gentleness, as he said to her:

"The hour is late, O Dea Flavia. I myself must leave the Forum now. I
would wish to see thee safe amongst thy women."

She turned her blue eyes upon him. His voice had roused her from her
meditations and recalled her to that sense of proud dignity with which
she loved to surround herself as with invisible walls. She must have
seen the pity in his eyes for he did not try to hide it, but it seemed
to anger her as coming from this man who--to her mind--was the primary
cause of her present trouble. She looked for a moment or two on him as
if trying to recollect his very existence, and no importunate slave
could ever encounter such complete disdain as fell on the praefect at
this moment from Dea Flavia's glance.

"I will return to my palace at the hour which pleaseth me most, O
praefectus," she said coldly, "and when the child Nola, being more
composed, is ready to accompany me."

"Nay!" he rejoined in his accustomed rough way, "the slave Nola is
naught to thee now. She will be looked after as the State directs."

"The slave is mine," she retorted curtly. "She shall come with me."

And even as she spoke she drew herself up to her full height, more like,
he thought, than ever to a stately lily now. The crown of gold upon her
head caught a glint from the noonday sun, and the folds of her white
tunic fell straight and rigid from her shoulders down to her feet.

It seemed strange to him that one so young, so exquisitely pure, should
thus be left all alone to face the hard moments of life; her very
disdain for him, her wilfulness, seemed to him pathetic, for they showed
her simple ignorance of the many cruelties which life must of necessity
have in store for her.

As for yielding to her present mood, he had no thought of it. It was
caprice originally which had caused her to defy his will and to break
old Menecreta's heart. She had invoked strict adherence to the law for
the sole purpose of indulging this caprice. Now he was tempted also to
stand upon the law and to defy her tyrannical will, even at the cost of
his own inclinations in the matter.

He would not trust her with the child Nola now. He had other plans for
the orphan girl, rendered lonely and desolate through a great lady's
whim, and he would have felt degradation in the thought that Dea Flavia
should impose her will on him in this.

He knew her power o