he
jealous elder in the comedy, will stand in your way! _Phui!_ What are
the complaints, threats, and prohibitions of such as he? At present,
the wind blows from his quarter, but it will not be ever so. Either
Lentulus will be in no place to hinder you before long, or we all
shall be beyond caring for his triumph or failure."

"Your excellency bids me hope!" cried Drusus.

"I bid you love," replied Caesar, smiling. "I bid you go to Baiae, for
there I have heard your dear lady waits her long-absent Odysseus, and
tell her that all will be well in time; for Caesar will make it so."

"For Caesar will make it so," repeated the young man, half-unconscious
that he was speaking aloud.

"For Caesar will make it so," reiterated the proconsul, as though Zeus
on Olympus were nodding his head in awful and irrevocable promise.

And the proconsul took both of his guest's hands in his own, and said,
with seriousness:--

"Quintus Drusus, why did you abandon your bride to support my cause?"

"Because," replied the other, with perfect frankness, "I should not be
worthy to look Cornelia in the face, if I did not sacrifice all to aid
the one Roman who can save the state."

"Young man," replied the proconsul, "many follow me for selfish gain,
many follow me to pay off a grudge, but few follow me because they
believe that because Caesar is ambitious, he is ambitious as a god
should be ambitious--to bestow the greatest benefits possible upon the
men entrusted to his charge. I know not what thread for me the Fates
have spun; but this I know, that Caesar will never prove false to those
who trust him to bring righteousness to Rome, and peace to the world."

* * * * *

That night, as Drusus was retiring, Curio spoke to him:--

And what manner of man do you think is the proconsul?"

"I think," replied Drusus, "that I have discovered the one man in the
world whom I craved to find."

"And who is that?"

"The man with an ideal."

Chapter XII

Pratinas Meets Ill-Fortune

I

Probably of the various personages mentioned in the course of our
story none was more thoroughly enjoying life about this time than
Agias. Drusus had left him in the city when he started for Ravenna,
with general instructions to keep an eye on Lucius Ahenobarbus and
Pratinas, and also to gather all he could of the political drift among
the lower classes. Agias was free now. He let his hair grow long in
token of his newly