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Updated: June 16, 2025
"I'd be a Vestal and all hope gone," said Brinnaria, "I mean," said Flexinna, "suppose Almo comes before your father." "I've thought of that," Brinnaria admitted. "But I'd hate to break the record of which our family is so proud. None of our women ever were so much as accused of any misbehavior before marriage." "I've no p-p-patience with you," Flexinna raged.
"Yes, I know," Flexinna rejoined, "but she was such an old d-d-dear, she looked so much younger than her age, her face so healthy and pink, and b-b-beautiful even with all its wrinkles, so calm and placid and holy I loved to look at her sitting in her big chair like a great white b-b-butterfly, so plump and handsome and soft- looking.
"You'll be outside Rome all night," Flexinna objected. "That's sacrilege." "Not a bit of it," Brinnaria retorted. "I know a regulation from a taboo. When the Gauls captured Rome the Flamen of Jupiter went up into the Capitol with the garrison. He might not leave Rome, it would have been impious. But the other flamens nd the Vestals left Rome, the Vestals were months at Caere.
I don't believe it is proved that she died of poison anyway. People who have never been ill are reckless eaters. Look at me, I am. She may have died of indigestion or stomach-ache or what not. I'd do anything I could to save him, now." "D-D-Do you mean to say," spoke Flexinna, "that if you encountered him being led out to execution, you'd reprieve him?
"Not f-f-forever," Flexinna retorted. "He's enough in love with you to wait for you, to wait for you! You could have pledged him to wait till your term of service was up and then you two could have married just the same." "Just the same!" Brinnaria echoed. "A lot of good it'd do me to marry after I'd be an old wrinkled, gray-haired woman of forty, dried up and withered."
"Nemestronia," Flexinna cited, "has married twice since she was forty, and she's not withered yet, not by a great deal, even if she is gray-haired and has a wrinkle or two." "What's the use of arguing," Brinnaria summed up. "I hate the very idea of being a Vestal. I'd hate the fact a million times more. I'd hate it even if I were not in love with Almo, furiously in love with Almo.
Both had assured her that they would ride at full gallop from the moment they passed the gates. Then began for Brinnaria a tense and anxious period of waiting. Flexinna obtained her parents' permission and remained with her friend.
Brinnaria, who loved swimming, felt the deprivation keenly. The Atrium had luxurious baths, but no swimming-pool. Whenever Brinnaria dined with Flexinna she particularly enjoyed the swim the two always took together before dinner. On that afternoon, while they were revelling in the water, Brinnaria told Flexinna of her adventure. "I can't conjecture," she said, "what motive brought him there.
She had on all Flexinna's clothes by the end of her explanation and was adjusting er two veils, one over her face, the other tied over the broad-brimmed travelling-hat, so that the edges of the brim, drawn down on either side, almost met under her chin and her face was lost in it. Flexinna continued to protest feebly, but Brinnaria made her compose herself in the bed.
"I am afraid," she said, "that my appetite is not as reliable as it was ten years ago. I think we had best eat our dinner first and discuss our bad news afterwards." Vocco and Flexinna looked distinctly relieved. Brinnaria's appetite seemed excellent. She ate abundantly, and, after the dinner tray was removed and the dessert tray brought in, she relished a half a dozen of her favorite purple figs.
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