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But she contrived to steady her voice and to appear outwardly calm as she said: "I do not understand thee, Licinia, speak more clearly. What is it that hath happened?" "The rabble are invading the Palatine," said Licinia, to the accompaniment of many groans. "They are on us I tell thee." "On us!" retorted Dea Flavia scornfully.
Had he yielded he would have despised himself even as this proud girl now affected to scorn him. He interposed his massive figure between Dea Flavia and the slave and said loudly: "By thy leave, Nola, the daughter of Menecreta, is the property of the State and 'tis I will decide whither she goeth now."
Sometimes it happened that Dea, when almost reaching youth, combed her long hair as she sat on her bed her chemise unfastened and falling off revealed indications of a feminine outline, and a vague commencement of Eve and would call Gwynplaine. Gwynplaine blushed, lowered his eyes, and knew not what to do in presence of this innocent creature. Stammering, he turned his head, feared, and fled.
And as if to confirm his words, the cries of "Death!" again rose in the air; the tramping of feet, the angry murmurs became more loud and appeared to be filling the street close by and tending toward the very door of Dea Flavia's house. "Ah, monsters! miserable monsters!" shouted the Cæsar, crazy with fear, "to-morrow will come the awful reprisals ... to-morrow ..."
In Virgil's account the prayer is made to Ceres, and we know that in imperial times, when the Ambarvalia became very closely connected with the worship of the imperial house, the centre of the cult was the earth-goddess, Dea Dia; but in the earliest account of the rustic ceremony which we possess in Cato, Mars is addressed in the unmistakeable character of an agricultural deity.
They spoke no more, but were silent in the plenitude of love. Ursus, who was crabbed, had overheard this. The next day, when the three were together, he said, "For that matter, Dea is ugly also." The word produced no effect. Dea and Gwynplaine were not listening. Absorbed in each other, they rarely heeded such exclamations of Ursus. Their depth was a dead loss.
But Dea Flavia, now that she was dressed, took no further notice of them; she left them there on the floor, moaning and whimpering, and hurried out into the atrium. Here too the sense of terror filled the air.
Young Escanes from time to time fingered the poniard which he had hidden under his tunic, Hortensius Martius gave free rein to his ardent admiration of Dea Flavia, Ancyrus, the elder, kept watch over every phase of the temper of the audience its apathy, its excitement, its murmurs of dissatisfaction and cries of enthusiasm.
He stopped on the threshold, raised his hand, and waved a little salute with the tips of his gloves toward him who lay dying above. "Bojou, dea' boy." The tone and gesture were worldly, irreproachable; but the voice trembled a little. The club on Rue Royale, renowned for its card-playing, had rarely seen so terrible a game as it saw that night.
To what their revelries meant he did not give a thought. Dea had told him why these men had come to her house. The intrigues hatched two days ago over a supper-table were finding their culmination now.
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