wonderful groups of her and thee. Ye are both beautiful; therefore my
act is beautiful, and being beautiful it cannot be bad. Marcus, here
sitting before thee is virtue incarnate in Caius Petronius! If Aristides
were living, it would be his duty to come to me and offer a hundred minae
for a short treatise on virtue."

But Vinicius, as a man more concerned with reality than with treatises
on virtue, replied,--"To-morrow I shall see Lygia, and then have her in
my house daily, always, and till death."

"Thou wilt have Lygia, and I shall have Aulus on my head. He will summon
the vengeance of all the infernal gods against me. And if the beast
would take at least a preliminary lesson in good declamation! He will
blame me, however, as my former doorkeeper blamed my clients but him I
sent to prison in the country."

"Aulus has been at my house. I promised to give him news of Lygia."

"Write to him that the will of the 'divine' Caesar is the highest law,
and that thy first son will bear the name Aulus. It is necessary that
the old man should have some consolation. I am ready to pray Bronzebeard
to invite him to-morrow to the feast. Let him see thee in the triclinium
next to Lygia."

"Do not do that. I am sorry for them, especially for Pomponia."

And he sat down to write that letter which took from the old general the
remnant of his hope.

Chapter VII

ONCE the highest heads in Rome inclined before Acte, the former favorite
of Nero. But even at that period she showed no desire to interfere in
public questions, and if on any occasion she used her influence over
the young ruler, it was only to implore mercy for some one. Quiet and
unassuming, she won the gratitude of many, and made no one her enemy.
Even Octavia was unable to hate her. To those who envied her she seemed
exceedingly harmless. It was known that she continued to love Nero with
a sad and pained love, which lived not in hope, but only in memories of
the time in which that Nero was not only younger and loving, but better.
It was known that she could not tear her thoughts and soul from those
memories, but expected nothing; since there was no real fear that Nero
would return to her, she was looked upon as a person wholly inoffensive,
and hence was left in peace. Poppaea considered her merely as a quiet
servant, so harmless that she did not even try to drive her from the
palace.

But since Caesar had loved her once and dropped her without offence in a
qu