voice broke upon the word--she loved him,
Catullus, strange as that seemed, and him only. Of course, like all
women of charm, she could play the harmless coquette with other men.
He hated the domestic woman--Lucretius's dun-coloured wife, for
instance--on whom no man except her mate would cast an eye.

He wanted men to fall at his Love's feet, he thanked Aphrodite that
she had the manner and the subtle fire and the grace to bring them
there. Her mind was wonderful, too, aflame, like Sappho's, with the
love of beauty. That was why he called her Lesbia. He had used
Sappho's great love poem (Valerius probably did not know it, but it
was like a purple wing from Eros's shoulder) as his first messenger
to her, when his heart had grown hot as AEtna's fire or the springs
of Thermopylae. She had finally consented to meet him at Allius's
house. Afterwards she had told him that the day was marked for her
also by a white stone.

If Valerius could only know how he felt! She was the greatest lady
in Rome, accoutred with wealth and prestige and incomparable beauty.
And she loved him, and was as good and pure and tender-hearted as
any unmarried girl in Verona. He was her lover, but often he felt
toward her as a father might feel toward a child. Catullus had
trembled as he brought out from his inner sanctuary this shyest
treasure. And never should he forget the healing sense of peace that
came to him when Valerius rode closer and put his arm around his
shoulder. "Diogenes," he said, "your flame is still bright. I could
wish you had not fallen in love with another man's wife, and if he
were still living I should try to convince you of the folly of it.
But I know this hot heart of yours is as pure as the snow we see on
the Alps in midsummer. That is all I need to know." And they had ridden
on in the darkness toward the lights of home.

The wind rose in a fresh wail: "He is dead, he is dead." The touch
of his arm was lost in the unawakening night. His perfect speech was
stilled in the everlasting silence. A smile, both bitter and wistful,
came upon Catullus's lips as he remembered a letter he had had
yesterday from Lucretius, bidding him listen to the voice of Nature
who would bring him peace. "What is so bitter," his friend had urged,
"if it comes in the end to sleep? The wretched cannot want more of
life, and the happy men, men like Valerius, go unreluctantly, like
well-fed guests from a banquet, to enter upon untroubled rest. Nor
i