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The guards dragged off Calvaster, babbling his pitiful gratitude. "Drive home," said Brinnaria to her coachman. THE exauguration of a Vestal, by which canonical ritual she was formally released from her obligations of chastity and service and became free to go where she liked and to marry or to remain unmarried as she preferred, was a brief and simple ceremony.
"You insult all of us and me most of all. Do you take me to be so unfair as to subject this lady to her test with a sieve brought and offered by her accuser?" Calvaster was dumb. "Show me that sieve," the Emperor commanded. Calvaster produced from under his robes a copper-hooped sieve strung with linen. Commodus handed it to Brinnaria. "What do you think of that sieve?" he inquired.
She wore her clothes with an unanalyzable difference, with a sort of effrontery, as Calvaster put it in talking of her to his cronies.
"The peace of mind of a Vestal," he said, "is a matter of such importance to the state that I should not hesitate about ordering Calvaster banished to some comfortable and healthy island and there detained permanently, were it not that the fellow has made himself almost indispensable.
I love Almo; I've promised to forget him, to be a good wife to Calvaster, and of course I'm going to keep my word. >From the moment I'm married to Calvaster I'll never so much as look at Almo, let alone touch him. So I'm touching him all I can while I have the chance." She paused, kissed Almo twice, lingeringly and loudly, and looked up again. "How's that for kissing, Calvaster?" she chirped.
"You are accused of misconduct with another man," he said. "Absurd!" said Brinnaria, "easy to confute. Who is the man?" "Not so easy to confute, I fear," said Lutorius. "The man named is Quintus Istorius Vocco." "Whew!" cried Brinnaria, springing to her feet and snapping her fingers. "That is ingenious! That will give me trouble! I didn't credit Calvaster with that much sense.
She knows me and will give me the power to prove my worthiness. She will no fail me. I know I can do it." "Do I understand you to offer to do it in broad daylight before me and the whole College of Pontiffs, Calvaster and all?" "In sight of all Rome," said Brinnaria, "if all Rome could crowd near enough to see."
In her case the indications, from the Roman point of view, all converged on the inference that she had been poisoned. No-one questioned the conclusion. Calvaster was immediately suspected. The evidence against him would not suffice to put in jeopardy any one in our days. To the Romans it seemed sufficient to justify his incarceration and trial.
Vesta herself could not carry water in that sieve." "Give it back to me!" the Emperor ordered. He eyed it as she had, sniffed at it like a dog at a mouse-hole, and glared over it at Calvaster. "You advertise yourself to all the world," he snarled, "as an unworthy Pontiff and a contemptible caitiff. You attempt to entrap me into the meanest unfairness!
Holding it so at full stretch she asked: "What do you think of that? Am I ready?" Commodus regarded her finger-tips, her face, and again her finger-tips: "Hercules be good to me !" he exclaimed. "Not a tremble, not a waver, not a quiver. You are mighty cool. You've plenty of confidence. I take it you are ready." "I am," said Brinnaria. "Where is that sieve?" >From behind her spoke Calvaster.
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