nsformed into flowers by the compassion
of the Gods; and she wished to become a flower, which Caesar might
sometimes touch, though he should touch it only to weave a crown for
some prouder and happier mistress.

She was roused from her musings by the loud step and voice of Cethegus,
who was pacing furiously up and down the supper-room.

"May all the Gods confound me, if Caesar be not the deepest traitor, or
the most miserable idiot, that ever intermeddled with a plot!"

Zoe shuddered. She drew nearer to the window. She stood concealed from
observation by the curtain of fine network which hung over the aperture,
to exclude the annoying insects of the climate.

"And you too!" continued Cethegus, turning fiercely on his accomplice;
"you to take his part against me!--you, who proposed the scheme
yourself!"

"My dear Caius Cethegus, you will not understand me. I proposed the
scheme; and I will join in executing it. But policy is as necessary to
our plans as boldness. I did not wish to startle Caesar--to lose his
co-operation--perhaps to send him off with an information against us to
Cicero and Catulus. He was so indignant at your suggestion that all my
dissimulation was scarcely sufficient to prevent a total rupture."

"Indignant! The Gods confound him!--He prated about humanity, and
generosity, and moderation. By Hercules, I have not heard such a lecture
since I was with Xenochares at Rhodes."

"Caesar is made up of inconsistencies. He has boundless ambition,
unquestioned courage, admirable sagacity. Yet I have frequently observed
in him a womanish weakness at the sight of pain. I remember that once
one of his slaves was taken ill while carrying his litter. He alighted,
put the fellow in his place and walked home in a fall of snow. I wonder
that you could be so ill-advised as to talk to him of massacre,
and pillage, and conflagration. You might have foreseen that such
propositions would disgust a man of his temper."

"I do not know. I have not your self-command, Lucius. I hate
such conspirators. What is the use of them? We must have
blood--blood,--hacking and tearing work--bloody work!"

"Do not grind your teeth, my dear Caius; and lay down the carving-knife.
By Hercules, you have cut up all the stuffing of the couch."

"No matter; we shall have couches enough soon,--and down to stuff
them with,--and purple to cover them,--and pretty women to loll
on them,--unless this fool, and such as he, spoil our plans. I had