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I am just as inclined to accept Calvaster's own explanation; he is an inquisitive busybody. "My verdict is that you need feel no alarm." "But I do," Brinnaria maintained; "I do not feel safe with Calvaster anywhere about." The Emperor reflected.
"I perceive that I must endure him," she said, "but if you cannot banish Calvaster, perhaps you'll oblige me by banishing Almo." "Almo!" the Emperor exclaimed, "what can you have against that gallant lad? Have you turned against him? I thought you were unshakably resolved to marry him, thought you loved him unalterably!"
The obstinacy faded from Brinnaria's handsome, regular face. She looked merely reflective "In the first place," she said, "because I despise him and hate him worse than any young man I ever knew; I would not marry Calvaster if he were the only man left alive.
Our properties adjoin not only here and at Baiae, but also at Praeneste, at Grumentum and at Ceneta. With our estates so marvellously paired the marriage seems divinely ordained when one comes to think it over. Don't be a fool. Anyhow, if you insist on making trouble for yourself, it will do you no good. My mind is made up. You are to marry Calvaster." "I won't!" Brinnaria maintained
He appears to me to be mean-spirited, narrow-minded and base. I am inclined to believe of him all that you impute. But, even to such as Calvaster, we should be just. You complained, a while ago, that the judges of the Vestals had ignored both the facts and the evidence. Let us weigh the evidence and stick to the facts. The only fact you present is that you caught Calvaster lurking in your house.
"I have a sieve here." Commodus rounded on him like an angry mastiff. "Who authorized you to speak?" he demanded. "You act as if you were Emperor. You are merely a minor Pontiff. Remember that and speak when you are spoken to." Calvaster, abashed but persistent, stammered: "I merely offered a sieve." "None of your concern to offer a sieve," Commodus growled.
"Calvaster, as you might conjecture," he answered; "and grieve to have to inform you," he added, "that this is no laughing matter." "Pooh!" said Brinnaria. "I'm not a bit afraid of Calvaster. Aurelius gave Commodus emphatic injunctions about me. And he went into details. Commodus can't have forgotten his reprimand to Calvaster nor his categorical threat."
Up spoke young Calvaster, his pasty face alight with a sort of malicious glee. "I passed Quartilla's travelling carriage at Varia last night. Quartilla was alive and well. I passed Brinnarius this morning at dawn, this side of Tibur. He was alive then and puffing." "How did you get here ahead of him?" Brinnaria interjected.
She was about to call to her lictor, to demand why the carriage had stopped and rebuke him for being so negligent as to allow so unsavory a being to come so near her. Then she saw between her and the executioner, just in front of that official, a kneeling figure. She recognized Calvaster. Also she saw the guards and executioner's assistants grouped about the two.
It sailed whirling through the air, splashed in the water and sank out of sight. "For the price of one dried bean, I'd order you thrown after it," said Commodus to Calvaster. He beckoned one of his aides. "Signal that boat!" he commanded. A broad blunt-ended cargo-boat, rather guided than propelled by its four heavy oars, came drifting down with the current.
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