a kiss," Lucius had said one morning,
when he was taking leave of Cornelia in the atrium of the Lentuli.
"Will you ever play the siren, and lure me to you? and then devour, as
it were, your victim, not with your lips, but with your eyes?"

"_Eho!_ Not so bold!" replied Cornelia, drawing back. "How can I give
you what you wish, unless I am safe from that awful Polyphemus up in
Praeneste?"

When Ahenobarbus went away, his thoughts were to the following effect:
"I had always thought Cornelia different from most women; but now I
can see that, like them all, she hates and hates. To say to her,
'Drusus is dead,' will be a more grateful present than the largest
diamond Lucullus brought from the East, from the treasure of King
Tigranes."

And it was in such a frame of mind that he met Pratinas by appointment
at a low tavern on the Vicus Tuscus. The Greek was, as ever, smiling
and plausible.

"Congratulations!" was his greeting. "Dumnorix has already started. He
has my orders; and now I must borrow your excellent freedman, Phaon,
to go to Praeneste and spy out, for the last time, the land, and
general our army. Let him start early to-morrow morning. The time is
ample, and unless some malevolent demon hinder us, there will be no
failure. I have had a watch kept over the Drusus estate. An old sentry
of a steward, Mamercus,--so I learn,--has been afraid, evidently, of
some foul play on the part of the consul-designate, and has stationed
a few armed freedmen on guard. Drusus himself keeps very carefully on
his own premises. This is all the better for us. Dumnorix will dispose
of the freedmen in a hurry, and our man will be in waiting there just
for the gladiators. Phaon will visit him--cook up some errand, and
inveigle him, if possible, well out in the colonnade in front of the
house, before Dumnorix and his band pass by. Then there will be that
very deplorable scuffle, and its sad, sad results. Alas, poor Drusus!
Another noble Livian gathered to his fathers!"

"I don't feel very merry about it," ventured Lucius. "I don't need
Drusus's money as much as I did. If it wasn't for Cornelia, I would
drop it all, even now. Sometimes I feel there are avenging
Furies--_Dirae_, we Latins call them--haunting me."

Pratinas laughed incredulously. "Surely, my dear fellow," he began,
"you don't need to have the old superstitions explained away again, do
you?"

"No, no," was his answer; Lucius capitulating another time.

So it came to p