red her head, even though
Licinia--with constant garrulousness--had oft made covert allusions to
that coming time. She knew--for it had been instilled into her from
every side ever since her father had left her under the tutelage of the
Caesar--that she must eventually obey him, if one day he desired that she
should marry.

A young patrician girl would never dream of rebellion against the power
of a father or a guardian, and when that guardian was the Caesar himself
and the girl was of the imperial house, the very thought of disobedience
savoured of sacrilege.

But hitherto that question had loomed ahead in Dea Flavia's dreams of
the future only as very shadowy and vague. She had never given a single
thought to any of the young men who paid her homage, and their efforts
at winning her favours had only caused her to smile.

She had felt herself to be unconquerable, even unattainable, and
Caligula, before this mad frenzy had fully seized hold of him, had--in
his own brutish way--indulged her in this, allowing her to lead her own
life and secretly laughing at the machinations that went on around him
to obtain the most coveted matrimonial prize in Rome.

Now suddenly this happy state of things was to come to an end; her
freedom, on which she looked as her most precious possession, was to be
taken roughly from her. One of the men whom she had despised, one of
that set of libertines, of idle voluptuaries who had dangled round her
skirts whilst casting covetous eyes upon her fortune, was to become her
master, her supreme lord, and she--a slave to his desires and to his
passions.

Strangely enough the thought of it just now was peculiarly horrible to
her--the thought of what the Caesar's wish might mean--the inevitableness
of it all nauseated her until she felt sick and faint, and the walls of
the room began to swing round her so that she had to steady herself on
her feet with a mighty effort of will, lest she should fall.

She knew the Caesar well enough to realise that if he had absolutely set
his mind on her marriage nothing would make him swerve from the thought.
If he once desired a thing he would never rest night or day until his
wish had been fulfilled.

Men and women of Rome knew that. Patricians and plebs, senators and
slaves, had died horrible deaths because the Caesar had demanded and they
had merely thought to disobey.

Therefore it was with wide-open, terror-filled eyes that she watched
that tyrannical ma