o-day! Dream of the dead, he had said, the
dead! And why had he talked of _a hidden poison of which men might
sicken and die_? She felt a silly desire to shriek, to strike her
head against the painted wall, to tear the jewels from her ears. The
orange cat arched its back and rubbed its head against her. She kicked
it fiercely, and its snarl of pain seemed to bring her to her senses.
She picked the creature up and stroked it. The bird in the cage broke
into a mad little melody. How morbid she was growing! She had been
depressed by her ridiculous dinner and Lucretius had been most
unpleasant. He was such a fool, too, in his idea of love. The brevity
of the heated hours was the flame's best fuel. Venus the Plunderer
seemed to smile, and there quickened within her the desire for
excitement, for the exercise of power, for the obliterating
ecstasies of a fresh amour. She had not had a lover since she accepted
Catullus. How the thought of that boy sickened her! He had been so
absurd that first day when she went to him at Allius's. After writing
her that his heart was an AEtna of imprisoned fire, in the first
moment he had reminded her of ice-cold Alps. He had knelt and kissed
her foot and then had kissed her lips--_her lips!_--as coolly as a
father might kiss a child. The unleashed passion, the lordly
love-making which followed had won her. But that first caress and
its fellow at later meetings was like crystal water in strong
wine--she preferred hers unmixed. Of a poet she had had enough for
one while; if she ever wanted him back she need only say so.

In the mean time it would be a relief to play the game with a man
who understood it. Youth she enjoyed, if it were not too
inexperienced. Caelius's smile, for instance, boyish and inviting,
had seemed to her full of promise. He was worth the winning and was
close at hand. Catullus had introduced him, which would add piquancy
to her letting the din of the Forum succeed the babbling of Heliconian
streams. Suddenly she laughed aloud, cruelly, as another thought
struck her. How furious and how impotent Cicero would be! If she could
play with this disciple of his, and then divest him of every shred
of reputation, she might feel that at last she was avenged on the
man whom she had meant to marry (after they had sloughed off Metellus
and Terentia) and who had escaped her. Calling back her secretary
she ordered writing materials and with her own hand wrote the
following note:

"Does