h her in his arms. "Do you not see I must leave you at
once? Shall it be without a promise?"

The blush had turned again to little anger spots, as she evaded him.

"Very well," she said slowly. "I will be Caia where thou art Caius--"

Sergius' face shone with exultation, and his lips parted.

"I will be Caia," she resumed, "upon the day when Orcus sends back the
dead from Acheron."

His expression of joy faded, and indignation took its place. Surely
this was carrying light speech too far--and at such a time. Suddenly
he realized that the dictator might already have ridden on, and
disgrace have fallen upon a Sergius at the very beginning of the
campaign.

"So be it! I accept that omen--with the others," he cried sternly,
and, turning, strode out through the atrium, bounded upon his horse,
and dashed headlong down the street, before Marcia was fairly aware
that he had gone from her presence.

IV.

FABIUS.

Sergius rode back to his men, deeply wounded in love and pride. He
tried to excuse Marcia for her treatment of him, on the score of her
youth and of youth's thoughtlessness; he blamed himself for his
abruptness and his lack of knowledge of women--failings that had
perhaps turned an impending victory into the defeat that now oppressed
him. Worst of all, there was no hope to remedy his or her fault. A
dangerous campaign lay before him, and the omens--but pshaw! _he_ was
not one of the rabble, to tremble at a flight of birds from the west or
an ox with a bad liver. He had always admired the spirit of that old
sceptic, Claudius, who had drowned the chickens off Drepana, though he
admitted the faulty judgment in failing to realize the effect of such a
defiance upon ignorant seamen and marines: the hierarchy was necessary
for the State; if only to keep fools in order, but for a man of family
and education--well, he smiled. It provoked him, amid all his
disbelief, that he could not help preferring that those same omens had
been more favourable. Pride, pride was his last and truest safeguard.
He, a descendant of the companion of Aeneas, to fear the Carthaginian
sword! he, a Roman noble, about to face death for his country, to waste
his thoughts upon a silly girl who chose to flout him!

Then the long clarions of the cavalry rang out, and the horsemen ran to
their steeds. Down the slope of the Viminal rode the dictator: before
him went the twenty-four axes, each in its bundle of staves, their
bear