esar and his
fellow-conspirators, let him never ask for your hand!"

"Sir," burst in Drusus, flushing with passion, "do you dare to set at
naught the will of your brother and its express commands? Dare you
withhold from me what is legally my own?"

"Legally?" replied Lentulus, with sharp scorn. "Don't use that word to
a consul-elect, who has the whole Senate and Pompeius behind him. Laws
are very dangerous tools for a young man to meddle with in a case like
this. You will be wise not to resort to the courts."

"You defy the law!" thundered Drusus, all the blood of his fighting
ancestors tingling in his veins. "Do you say that to a Livian; to the
heir of eight consuls, two censors, a master of the horse, a dictator,
and three triumphators? Shall not _he_ obtain justice?"

"And perhaps," said Lentulus, sinking into an attitude of irritating
coldness, "you will further press your claim on the ground that your
mother was a Fabian, and the Fabii claim the sole right to sacrifice
to Hercules on the Great Altar[82] in the Cattle-market by the
Flaminian Circus, because they are descended from Hercules and
Evander. I think the Cornelian gens can show quite as many death-masks
in its atria, and your mock heroics will only stamp you as a very bad
tragedian."

[82] _Ara Maxima_.

"Uncle! Quintus!" implored Cornelia again, the tears beginning to
start from her eyes. "Cease this dreadful quarrel. Go away until you
can talk calmly."

"Quintus Livius," shouted Lentulus, dropping the "Drusus," a part of
the name which was omitted in formal address, "you can choose here and
now. Forswear your Caesarian connections, or consider my niece's
betrothal at an end!"

Drusus stood looking in blank dismay from one to the other of the
little company. Claudia had started to speak, but closed, her lips
without uttering a word. Lentulus faced him, hot, flushed, and with a
cynical smile of delight, at the infliction of mental torture, playing
over his face. Cornelia had dropped down upon a chair, buried her
pretty face in her hands, and was sobbing as if her heart would break.
It was a moment Drusus would not soon forget. The whole scene in the
atrium was stamped upon his memory; the drops of the fountain seemed
frozen in mid-air; the rioting satyr on the fresco appeared to be
struggling against the limitations of paint and plaster to complete
his bound; he saw Cornelia lift her head and begin to address him, but
what she said was drowned