pey was left in Rome, but the waning of his political star, it
could not be denied, had dimmed his social lustre. Clodius, of course,
was in full swing, triumphant in Caesar's friendship and Cicero's
defeat, but if society was able to stomach him, he himself had the
audacious honesty to foregather in grosser companionship. Even
Lucullus, whose food and wine had come to seem a permanent refuge
amid political changes and social shifts, must now be counted out.
His mind was failing, and the beautiful Apollo dining room and
terraced gardens would probably never be opened again.

In view of the impending handicaps Clodia was especially anxious that
a dinner she was to give immediately on her return from Baiae in
mid-October should be a conspicuous success. During her husband's
consulship two years ago she had won great repute for inducing men
of all parties, officials, artists and writers, to meet in her house.
Last year, owing to Metellus's sickness and death, she had not done
anything on a large scale. This autumn she had come back determined
to reassume her position. She was unaffected by the old-fashioned
prejudice against widows entertaining and she had nothing to fear
from the social skill of this year's consuls.

Her invitations had been hurried out, and now in her private sitting
room, known as the Venus Room from its choicest ornament, a
life-sized statue of Venus the Plunderer, she was looking over the
answers which had been sorted for her by her secretary. The Greek,
waiting for further orders, looked at her with admiring, if
disillusioned, eyes. Large and robust, her magnificent figure could
display no ungraceful lines as she sat on the low carved chair in
front of a curtain of golden Chinese silk. Her dress was of a strange
sea-green and emeralds shone in her ears and her heavy, black hair.
An orange-coloured cat with gleaming, yellow eyes curved its tail
across her feet. Above her right shoulder hung a silver cage
containing a little bird which chirped and twittered in silly
ignorance of its mistress's mood. Anger disfigured her beautiful
mouth and eyes. The list of regrets stretched out to sinister length
and included such pillars of society as Brutus and Sempronia, Bibulus
and Portia. A cynical smile relieved Clodia's sullen lips. Did these
braggarts imagine her blind to the fact that if lively Sempronia and
stupid Bibulus could conveniently die, Brutus and Portia, who were
wiping her off their visiting lis