to make of
myself?"

"I wish you to make nothing different," was her reply, "for you are
precisely what I have always wanted you to be. When you have read as
much as I have," this with an air of utter weariness, "you will
realize the futility of philosophic study."

"_Eho!_" remarked Drusus again. "So you would have me feel that I am
turning my back on nothing very great, after all?"

"And so I mean."

"Seriously?"

"I am serious, Quintus." And indeed Cornelia was. "I can read
Aristotle and Plato, and Zeno and Cleanthes, and Pyrrho, and a score
of others. I can spin out of my own brain a hundred theories of the
universe as good as theirs, but my heart will not be the happier, if
things outside make me sad. I am sick of the learning that is no
learning, that answers our questions by other questions that are more
riddling."

"Ah, scoffer at the wise," laughed Drusus, "what do you wish, then?"
He spoke in Greek.

"Speak in Latin, in Latin, Quintus," was her retort. "I am weary of
this fine, sweet language that tinkles so delicately, every word of
which hides a hundred meanings, every sentence attuned like the notes
for a harp. Let us have our own language, blunt and to the point; the
language, not of men who wonder what they ought to do, but who _do_.
We are Romans, not Greeks. We have to rule the world, not growl as to
how Jupiter made it. When you came back from Athens I said, 'I love
Quintus Drusus, but I would love him more if he were less a Hellene.'
And, now I see you wholly Roman, I love you wholly. And for myself, I
wish neither to be a Sappho, nor an Aspasia, nor a Semiramis, but
Cornelia the Roman matron, who obeys her husband, Quintus Drusus, who
cares for his house, and whom, in turn, her household fears and
obeys."

"_O tempora! O mores!_" cried the young soldier, in delight. "When had
ever a woman such ambition in these degenerate days? _Eu!_ Then I will
burn my books, if you can get no profit out of them."

"I do not think books are bad," said Cornelia, still soberly, "but I
know that they can never make me happy."

"What can?" demanded her tormenter.

"_You!_"

* * * * *

So the hours of the afternoon ran on, and the lovers gave them little
heed. But they were not too selfish to refuse to Fabia's sharing in
their joy; and Drusus knew that he was dear no less, though
differently, in the eyes of his aunt than of his betrothed. And there
were duties to perfor