could not altogether shun him, though she successfully resisted
his half blandishments, half coercion, to make her join in his wild
frivolities. One revenge she found she could take on him--a revenge
that she enjoyed because it proclaimed her own intellectual
superiority, and made Ahenobarbus writhe with impotent vexation--she
had him at her mercy when they played at checkers;[133] and at last
Lucius lost so much money and temper at this game of wit, not chance,
that he would sulkily decline a challenge. But this was poor
consolation to Cornelia. The time was drifting on. Before many days
Lentulus Crus and Caius Clodius Marcellus would be consuls, and the
anti-Caesarians would be ready to work their great opponent's undoing,
or be themselves forever undone. Where was Drusus? What was he doing?
What part would he play in the struggle, perhaps of arms, about to
begin? O for one sight of him, for one word! And the hunger in
Cornelia's breast grew and grew.

[133] _Latrunculi_.

Many are our wishes. Some flit through our hearts like birds darting
under the foliage of trees, then out again, lost in the sunshine;
others linger awhile and we nestle them in our bosoms until we forget
that they are there, and the noble desire, the craving for something
dear, for something that bears for us as it were a divine image, is
gone--we are the poorer that we no longer wish to wish it. But some
things there are--some things too high or too deep for speech, too
secret for really conscious thought, too holy to call from the
innermost shrines of the heart; and there they linger and hover,
demanding to be satisfied, and until they are satisfied there is void
and dreariness within, be the sunshine never so bright without. And so
Cornelia was a-hungered. She could fight against herself to save
Drusus's life no longer; she could build around herself her dream
castles no more; she must see him face to face, must hold his hand in
hers, must feel his breath on her cheek.

Is it but a tale that is told, that soul can communicate to distant
soul? That through two sundered hearts without visible communication
can spring up, unforewarned, a single desire, a single purpose? Is
there no magnetism subtle beyond all thought, that bounds from spirit
to spirit, defying every bond, every space? We may not say; but if
Cornelia longed, she longed not utterly in vain. One morning, as she
was dressing, Cassandra, who was moving around the room aiding her