as a desperate effort seemed to have
suppressed it. Then she drew the robes of the carriage round her, laid
her head on Agias's shoulder, and with a confidence in her protector
that would have inspired him to go through fire and water for her
sake, shook out her dark locks and fell fast asleep, despite the fact
that the mules were running their fastest. Agias grasped the reins
with one hand, and with the other pressed tight the sleeping girl. He
would not have exchanged his present position for all the wealth of
Sardanapalus.

* * * * *

Five days later Agias was back in Rome. He had succeeded in reaching
Baiae, and introducing Artemisia into the familia of the villa of the
Lentuli, as a new waiting-maid from Rome sent by Claudia to her
daughter. For the present at least there was practically no chance of
Pratinas recovering his lost property. And indeed, when Agias reached
Rome once more, all fears in that direction were completely set at
rest. The fashionable circle in which Claudia and Herennia were
enmeshed was in a flutter and a chatter over no ordinary scandal.
Valeria, wife of Calatinus, and Pratinas, the "charming" Epicurean
philosopher, had both fled Rome two days before, and rumour had it
that they had embarked together at Ostia on a ship leaving direct for
Egypt. Of course Calatinus was receiving all the sympathy, and was a
much abused man; and so the tongues ran on.

To Agias this great event brought a considerable gain in peace of
mind, and some little loss. Valeria had taken with her her two maids,
Agias's good friends, and also Iasus. Pisander ignominiously had been
left behind. Calatinus had no use for the man of learning, and Agias
was fain to take him before Drusus, who had returned from Ravenna, and
induce his patron to give Pisander sufficient capital to start afresh
a public school of philosophy, although the chances of acquiring
opulence in that profession were sufficiently meagre.

Chapter XIII

What Befell at Baiae

I

Cornelia was at Baiae, the famous watering-place, upon the classic
Neapolitan bay,--which was the Brighton or Newport of the Roman. Here
was the haunt of the sybarites, whose gay barks skimmed the shallow
waters of the Lucrine lake; and not far off slumbered in its volcanic
hollow that other lake, Avernus, renowned in legend and poetry,
through whose caverns, fable had it, lay the entrance to the world of
the dead. The whole country