nature such relations with any other person would have been
humiliating; now, however, not only did he not feel humiliated, but
he was thankful to her as to his sovereign. In him those were feelings
unheard-of, feelings which he could not have entertained the day before,
and which would have amazed him even on that day had he been able to
analyze them clearly. But he did not inquire at the moment why it was
so, just as if the position had been perfectly natural; he merely felt
happy because he remained there.

And he wished to thank her with gratefulness, and still with a kind of
feeling unknown to him in such a degree that he knew not what to
call it, for it was simply submission. His previous excitement had so
exhausted him that he could not speak, and he thanked her only with his
eyes, which were gleaming from delight because he remained near her, and
would be able to see her--to-morrow, next day, perhaps a long time. That
delight was diminished only by the dread that he might lose what he had
gained. So great was this dread that when Lygia gave him water a second
time, and the wish seized him to take her hand, he feared to do so. He
feared!--he, that Vinicius who at Caesar's feast had kissed her lips
in spite of her! he, that Vinicius who after her flight had promised
himself to drag her by the hair to the cubiculum, or give command to
flog her!

Chapter XXIV

BUT he began also to fear that some outside force might disturb his
delight. Chilo might give notice of his disappearance to the prefect of
the city, or to his freedmen at home; and in such an event an invasion
of the house by the city guards was likely. Through his head flew the
thought, it is true, that in that event he might give command to seize
Lygia and shut her up in his house, but he felt that he ought not to do
so, and he was not capable of acting thus. He was tyrannical, insolent,
and corrupt enough, if need be he was inexorable, but he was not
Tigellinus or Nero. Military life had left in him a certain feeling of
justice, and religion, and a conscience to understand that such a deed
would be monstrously mean. He would have been capable, perhaps, of
committing such a deed during an access of anger and while in possession
of his strength, but at that moment he was filled with tenderness, and
was sick. The only question for Vinicius at that time was that no one
should stand between him and Lygia.

He noticed, too, with astonishment, that f