sius Martius courted certain death in order to win thy favours,
the rage of the populace against the Caesar!... think on it all! Did not
Jove direct all this?"

"Aye! but meseems that he did!" she murmured, as her eyes fastened
themselves on the heavy door that led to the inner room, "but since then
hath he not directed the people to acclaim the Caesar of their choice?"

Caius Nepos shrugged his shoulders and Hortensius Martius broke in
hotly.

"The rabble clamours for the praefect of Rome! but the praefect is
dead...."

"Aye! I remember, my lord," she said quietly, "there is a rumour that he
died soon after he had saved thy life."

Then as Hortensius Martius, feeling the sting of the rebuke, bit his
under lip to check an angry retort, Ancyrus, the elder, rejoined
suavely, trying to pour the oil of his honeyed words on the troubled
water of the younger man's wrath.

"The praefect is dead, O Augusta, and the people will soon forget him.
Rome deifies thee because of thy great kinsman. Having forgotten the
hero of their choice they will readily turn to thee whom they love. They
will accept from thy hands the Caesar whom thou wilt choose."

My lord Hortensius after that first feeling of anger had soon recovered
his serenity. He tried to put an expression of sad reproach into the
glance which he fixed on the Augusta. Perhaps she had not meant to
rebuke him and was already sorry that she had wounded him. He would have
liked to put into his glance all that he felt in his heart for her; deep
down within him, below the overlaying crust of his ambition, there was
real love for the beautiful girl who had it in her power to bestow on
him all the gifts for which he craved.

He firmly believed that the Augusta reciprocated his love. She had
always received his admiration more patiently than that of others, she
had more than once listened quietly to the protestations of his love.
Yesterday he had risked his life to win her hand: she, a proud Roman
lady, was not like to forget his valour. When from the arena he had
caught sight of her face, it was terror-stricken and deathly pale; she
had feared for him then, of that he was quite sure.

The horrible death which he had faced had given him the first claim to
her favours in the sight of his friends. They had rallied willingly
round him and had tacitly recognised him as their leader. Now it seemed
as if Jove himself, with the help of his thunders, had ranged himself on
his side.