. Drusus
wrote that he could not for the time see that any good end would be
served by coming to Rome, and he would remain for the present in
Praeneste. He and she must try to wait in patience, until politics took
such a turn as would drive Lentulus into a more tractable attitude.
Cornelia found the days monotonous and dreary. Her uncle's freedman
kept her under constant espionage to prevent a chance meeting with
Drusus, and but for Agias she would have been little better than a
prisoner, ever in charge of his keepers.

In a way, however, Cornelia found that there was enough stirring in
the outside world to lend zest and often venom to the average
emptiness of polite conversation. Politics were penetrating deeper and
deeper into fashionable society. Cornelia heard how Paulus, the
consul, had taken a large present from Caesar to preserve neutrality;
and how Curio, the tribune, had checked Clodius Marcellus, the other
consul, when he wished to take steps in the Senate against Caesar. All
that Cornelia heard of that absent statesman was from hostile lips;
consequently she had him painted to her as blood-thirsty, treacherous,
of flagrant immorality, with his one object to gather a band of
kindred spirits to his cause, and become despot. And to hear such
reports and yet to keep confident that Drusus was not sacrificing both
himself and her in a worse than unworthy cause--this tested her to the
uttermost.

To add to her troubles, Lucius Ahenobarbus was ever thrusting in his
attentions at every party and at the theatre; and her uncle openly
favoured his suit.

"I wish you would be more friendly to him," remarked Lentulus on one
occasion. "I should be glad to have a closer tie between his family
and ours."

"Uncle," said Cornelia, much distressed, "I do not think I understand
what you mean."

"Well," chuckled Lentulus, moving away, "think it over until you do
understand."

Cornelia had been reading in the library when this conversation took
place. There was to be another party that evening at the house of
Marcus Favonius, a prominent anti-Caesarian, and since it was growing
late in the afternoon, it was time to dress. Cornelia went into her
own room, and was summoning her maids, when a young lady of about her
own age, who affected to be on terms of considerable intimacy, was
announced--Herennia, a daughter of a certain rich old eques, Caius
Pontius, who had kept out of politics and hoarded money, which his
daughter wa