from Cornelia.

"If you come," was her response, "I shall not perhaps order the slaves
to pitch you out heels over head."

"Ah! That is a guarded assent, indeed," laughed Lucius, "but farewell,
_pulcherrima!_"[94]

[94] Most beautiful.

Cornelia that night lay down and sobbed herself to sleep. Her mother
had congratulated her on her brilliant social success at the
dinner-party, and had praised her for treating Lucius Ahenobarbus as
she had.

"You know, my dear," the worthy woman had concluded, "that since it
has seemed necessary to break off with Drusus, a marriage with Lucius
would be at once recommended by your father's will, and in many ways
highly desirable."

II

Only a very few days later Lucius Ahenobarbus received a message
bidding him come to see his father at the family palace on the
Palatine. Lucius had almost cut himself clear from his relations. He
had his own bachelor apartments, and Domitius had been glad to have
him out of the way. A sort of fiction existed that he was legally
under _the patria potestas_,[95] and could only have debts and assets
on his father's responsibility, but as a matter of fact his parent
seldom paid him any attention; and only called on him to report at
home when there was a public or family festival, or something very
important. Consequently he knew that matters serious were on foot,
when he read in his father's note a request to visit Domitius's palace
as soon as convenient. Lucius was just starting, in his most spotless
toga,--after a prolonged season with his hairdresser,--to pay a
morning call on Cornelia, and so he was the more vexed and perturbed.

[95] Sons remained under the legal control of a father until the
latter's death, unless the tie was dissolved by elaborate ceremonies.

"Curses on Cato,[96] my old uncle," he muttered, while he waited in
the splendid atrium of the house of the Ahenobarbi. "He has been
rating my father about my pranks with Gabinius and Laeca, and something
unpleasant is in store for me."

[96] Cato Minor's sister Portia was the wife of Lucius Domitius.
Cato was also connected with the Drusi through Marcus Livius Drusus,
the murdered reformer, who was the maternal uncle of Cato and Portia.
Lucius Ahenobarbus and Quintus Drusus were thus third cousins.

Domitius presently appeared, and his son soon noticed by the affable
yet diplomatic manner of his father, and the gentle warmth of his
greeting, that although there was