I
I
The lord Eudemius, covered with tawny leopard skins, lay stretched on a couch of carven ebony in the library of the villa, of which the windows overlooked the great central courtyard. He was a tall man, spare, with black, sombre eyes, a high nose, and a wiry black beard, close clipped. His hands, long and white and nervous, held a scroll which he kept slowly unwinding and letting roll together again. His face was remarkable for nothing save its complete impassivity; devoid of all expression, it was merely a mask behind which the man kept locked his real self and thoughts. A dish of fruit stood on a stand at his elbow. With him in the room sat Livinius, the father of Marius, making notes with a stylus on a tablet of ivory coated with wax. The face of Livinius was grave, yet eager. He began to speak presently, as though continuing a conversation which had gone before.
"Rome has often needed gold, and has wrung it from the people mercilessly; but I tell you, Eudemius, thather need was never greater than in this hour. Ay, and not gold alone she must have, but brains to plan for her, hands to work for her, blood to be spilled for her. You, yourself, friend, have been soldier, senator, statesman. You know, as I know, and as every Roman in his soul must know, that the core of the trouble lies in the fact that she hath gathered in more than her two hands could hold. I would not see her other than she is,—mistress of the world; but I would first see her in a position to maintain that title in the face of all challenge. And she is not in such position. Outwardly, she hath all show of might, of force invincible and impregnable. But behind this, what is there? The weakness of dissension, where there should be solidarity; division of interests, where nothing can save but union; rottenness, where there should be wholesomeness and vigor. This is not treason I speak, but truth. We have served her in field and forum, you and I; we have offered our blood on her altars; we shall both carry the marks of her service until we die. And she hath paid us well. Now I am worn out, useless, and cast aside; she has taken all she would from me, even my son. But you, old friend, have still what she needs to offer. She needs gold; but more than that, she needs one, powerful as you are powerful, to come forward and point to more timid ones the way. When she enters her own once more, she will repay your loan with interest, for that hath ever been Rome's way. I tell you, Rome in these days is like a sinking ship, from which the rats scurry in swarms, to stand aside and wait to see if there be prospect of a safe return. Here, overseas, you get but an echo of the truth. Every day the call goes out for more troops, and more."
Eudemius nodded thoughtfully.
"So the Third Legion is to be recalled from Gaul to Rome. It is what may be expected, but I had not thought so soon. Their plans have been kept well secret. Ætius will soon not have men enough for himself, not to speak of sending over men to our assistance. I suppose your son goes with them? It must be all of ten years since I saw him last."
"He hath changed," the father answered quietly. "Yes, he goes, and I go with him. Come thou with us, friend! What has Rome done to thee that thou shouldst not answer to her need? Now, if ever, is the time when her sons must rally to her, for with all her faults—and she hath many—she is still the mother of them all. I know well that it was within her walls that thy trouble fell upon thee; but was she to blame for that?"
Eudemius's dark face never changed from its graven inscrutability, but his thin hands clutched the scroll tighter and let it fall. Livinius eyed him tenderly.
"Is not the old wound healing, even yet?" he asked with great gentleness. For a moment silence fell. Then Eudemius, stooping from the couch to pick up the fallen roll, said in his hard and even voice, as though he discussed matters of small moment and everyday concern:
"Healing? Nay, how should it heal when each day fresh salt is rubbed into it? Take a look at it now, if you will, for hereafter we'll let it bide and rankle as it must. Tell me; have not your eyes seen changes, mental as well as physical, concerning which your lips have not questioned?"
"Changes? in you?" said Livinius, dropping into theother's more distant tone. "Ay, that is true, and my heart aches to see them. That is another reason why I urge your return to Rome. New scenes, new faces—your life is broken, yet a broken pitcher may be mended."
"True," Eudemius admitted evenly. "But who expects it to hold water again? Is it not rather placed upon the shelf and forgotten—if, indeed, it be not flung upon the rubbish-heap?"
"But think of this—" Livinius persisted. Eudemius broke in.
"Ay, I have thought of this and that, and this is all it comes to!" he said harshly. "That when I am gone, my name, blazoned in the annals of Rome before great Cæsar was, must dwindle out to nothing with a weak girl. It came to me great, unstained, heavy with memories of soldiers, heroes, statesmen, who had borne it worthily and left it clean for their sons and their sons' sons. I made it the name of wealth as well as of greatness; I thought to hand it down to my sons and my sons' sons, as the fires of Vesta are handed down from one generation to the next. A son I prayed for—what any sodden carter is judged worthy to beget; a male child to uprear in the traditions of his house, to add, an he might, his share to the glory of it. A son to serve Rome as his fathers served. And what was born to me? A puling fool, not worthy even to breed her kind into the world. Were she blessed with wit, she might mate with one worthy of her blood and keep her name thus from complete extinction. As it is—what man would have her to bear him mindless brats? Who would become sire to a race of idiots?"
Livinius scratched the wax of his tablet absently, and rubbed his finger over the mark.
"I have wondered often why you never married again," he remarked, tentatively. "It is fifteen years since Constantia's death; surely in that time you might have found a woman to become the mother of your sons."
"True, I might," Eudemius admitted, coolly. "But those fifteen years ago, through mine own folly and hatred of life after that double blow of her death and knowledge of the girl's condition,—for it was a blow, Livinius, since I was not then the wooden image of to-day,—there fell on me the judgment of the gods for such rebellion as mine." He turned his sombre eyes full on Livinius. "Would you believe, to see me as I sit here, that mine is a body racked by the tortures of the damned, drained of the very sap of life by disease that eats into every nerve and leaves it raw and quivering, yet that only numbs when its fury is spent, and will not kill? That time after time, when its throes are on me, I have turned craven and begged Claudius for a potion to end it all?" He laughed shortly, with no sound of merriment. "I marry again—a rotten hulk fit only for carrion!"
Livinius listened, shocked.
"Oh, my dear!" he exclaimed in honest sympathy, "is it indeed thus with thee? And I had thought of thee entering the harbor of thy rest, wealthy, honored, reconciled, perhaps, to what the gods in their wisdom had ordained for thee, to end thy days in quiet and content. For fifteen years, thou sayest. Man, how hast thou lived to tell it?"
Eudemius smiled, a smile which began at his lips and ended there, leaving his bitter eyes unlightened.
"Ay, fifteen years—and yet not so bad as that!" he said shortly. "Or it would have been well over with me by now. But I have known from the first what lay ahead. I won it from Claudius,—poor fool, how he trembled to tell me!—knew that each attack must be more severe than the one before; that each day the disease would stride forward a slow inch, no more, and no human skill might advance it or hold it back." His harsh voice sank a note lower. "At such times, when that grip closes upon me, I know not what I do. Rather, I know, yet am powerless to act otherwise. I tell thee, Livinius, I have had slaves flogged, ay, tortured, before my eyes, to see if by chance I might find suffering greater than mine own. And if they died, I have had tortured those who let them die, for it is not death I want, but what I have found to be worse than death. Judge then if I were not better out of the world! Yet the only way of release open to me I will not take, since I have not yet lost courage enough to brand myself a coward. I have told Claudius, on pain of death for disobedience, that no matter how I cry to him for peace, he shall pay no heed. Strange, is it not, that in this house the only happy thing is the cause of all the sorrow that hath entered it? And yet—perhaps it is not so strange. She is but the cause; on others fall the effects, ... and in their wisdom the gods have ordered that only effects shall count in their scheme of things."
He put a hand over Livinius's hand, held it a moment, and let it go. For the first time he fell into the intimacy of the other's speech.
"Thank thee, old friend, for thy sympathy. It is not often that the gall of my bitterness overflows, for I havelearned the wisdom of the Stoic at first hand. But I can claim scant sympathy here,—and would not if I could,—where men call me the Torturer behind my back and cringe like curs before my face. I am hard and cruel and calloused to the bone; yet were I not thus, in the name of the high gods, what should I be? A thing lower than man, who can be lower than the beasts; from which gods and men—ay, and beasts themselves—would turn in loathing. Thou art my childhood's friend; thy sympathy hath been sweet to me, and I've bared my heart to thee. I have said: 'The world runs thus and so with me; were it in my power, I'd have it otherhow. As it is, no good will come of its discussion, so let there be an end to it, now and for all time.'"
A quick step sounded on the marble floor; the curtains at the entrance parted, and Marius came in. He went clad in spotless white, which oddly accentuated his bulk and made his swarthiness darker by contrast. He stopped short at sight of the two apparently in earnest conversation.
"Pardon!" he said easily. "I was told that I should find my father here, but I intrude."
"Not at all!" Eudemius answered. "We had finished our talk, and it was over time we were brought back from the memory of other days."
Livinius smiled at his son as the latter sat down on the wide low ledge of the window, and his genial eyes were full of pride. Eudemius caught the look, and his own eyes darkened, even though the mask of his face never changed. This indeed was a son of whom one might be proud—a son such as he himself should have had but for the mockery of the gods; a son strong ofmind and body, able to hold his own against all men, to assume the burdens that one by one slipped from his father's shoulders. There was hint of dissipation in the clear-cut face; there was more than a trace of headstrong will, which might easily enough turn to sheer brutality against whoever crossed it. There was hardness, and small tenderness, in the firm jaw and the black keen eyes; but what Roman father could not condone such things as these? For to Roman eyes, all this went to spell strength; and Romans worshipped strength as Athenians worshipped beauty. And Marius was strong, so that Eudemius, who was strong also, with the most unbreakable strength of all, and could appreciate mere physical vigor the more since his own had gone from him, looked at him and envied the father of him with bitterness.
"To-day I go on to Londinium," Marius said, gazing out into the sun-flecked courtyard. "Will you wait here, father, for me? To-morrow I shall return, or next day at most—the business will not take long." He turned to Eudemius with an explanation. "There is trouble about one of the transports which are assigned to my cohort for our return to Gaul. She has been discovered unseaworthy and in need of repairs, and may not be able to start with the rest of the fleet. This is doubly inconvenient, as there is small prospect of securing a vessel to take her place, and our orders are to sail for Gaul with as little delay as possible. So much misunderstanding and confusion has resulted, that I have been sent to report personally what are the chances for a start."
"That is too bad," Eudemius said. He was looking at Marius at the moment, and Marius was looking beyondhim into the court. Eudemius saw that all at once his face changed slightly, and his eyes awoke to a faint, curious interest. Eudemius knew that nothing in his words could have aroused this, and waited. Then he understood that Marius was watching some one outside in the courtyard; some one whose approach he could gauge by following the man's glance. The some one came to the door that opened on the court, and stopped there, and Eudemius glanced aside and saw Varia on the threshold. At the same instant Marius rose.
She wore robes that flowed and yet were clinging, of faintest green, like the young shining leaves of springtime; and her skin glowed and her lips were crimson, and her hair was loose and tumbled. She held a ball in her hands, and stood in the doorway, hesitating, like a child who does not know whether or not it will be welcomed, and yet would like to enter and find out what was going on. In her pose there was a quaint and tender dignity, in odd contrast with her rumpled hair and the childish plaything in her hands. Eudemius looked at her; and for a single instant the veil of prejudice was lifted from his eyes, and he saw that, in spite of all, this child of his was fair,—as fair as the dear dead woman who had given her to him and lived to know what she had done. For that instant hope rose in him; he shot a glance at Marius and read the dawning admiration in his eyes; perhaps, after all, in some not too distant time, there might be—Then he realized the futility of such hopes, that had wakened and died so many times before. Marius did not know the truth. When he did know—He saw that Varia did not look at either of the others, but straight at him, and he spoke to her.
"Come hither, child!"
She came, docile, and stood near the foot of his couch. With her there seemed to enter a breath of pure fragrance, as of wind blowing softly among unspoiled, wild flowers of the country-side, of all things young and innocent and holy. Livinius's face softened as he looked at her. She waited, watching her father, expecting nothing. Always he had given her nothing to expect, neither unkindness nor affection. Eudemius looked at Livinius; from him to Marius, where he stood in the window, silent, dominant even in his silence.
"And this is mine!" he said, with a motion of his hand toward Varia. Livinius, alone understanding all that his words and tone implied, gave him a glance of mute reproach. He took Varia's hand, as she stood near him, and patted it.
"I am glad to know thee, dear child," he said gently. "Thy father I have known these many years, but thou wert a little baby when I saw thee last. Perhaps he has not told thee that I am a friend of his, and this is my son."
And Varia, for the first time, looked into Marius's face, and smiled, saying nothing at all. She sat on the edge of the couch, the ball in her lap.
"Where have you been, child?" Eudemius asked.
"In the garden, playing ball. I am going to play again," she answered, and never thought to wonder why he frowned.
But Marius came over to the couch.
"Will you let me play also?" he asked, with a faint note of amusement in his voice. "Perhaps I can show you a game you do not know, which soldiers play incamp. When they have no ball, like yours, they take a lump of bread, that is round, and very hard, and will keep for months without spoiling, and they play with that."
Varia jumped up.
"I should like that!" she said eagerly. "I cannot show you any game, for I know none that are interesting; but I can learn yours!"
The two went out into the courtyard, side by side. Livinius said, in his gentle voice:
"She is a dear child."
And Eudemius answered:
"She is a bad bargain dearly bought," and turned his face away from the window.
Varia wearied of the new game shortly, and sat down beside the fountain to rest, with a frank intimation that her companion might go back to the house. This he showed no intention of doing, but threw himself on the grass beside her, and set himself the task of making her talk. He studied her curiously; he had seen much of many women in many lands, but none who were quite like her. Her utter simplicity was baffling; artificial himself, brought up in a civilization which was artificial, he could not get it out of his mind that it was not a pose. Very soon he got her mental calibre; with it got also certain surprises. She was all-innocent; yet, at times, when she sat with hands clasping her knees and looked past him, without speech or motion, as regardless of him as though he had not been there, he caught a hint in her eyes of something he could not read. It was as though she struggled to recall a memory of something gone by,—something sweet yet unholy which she did not understand, would not ask about, and could not forget. And,at other times, in the midst of her childish prattle, she would say what would make him glance at her strangely, in a voice like hers, yet whose subtle intonations were not like hers. Also, he had not found many women who were at times as honestly regardless of him as though he had not been there. With all her contrarieties he found her merry, full of a primitive joy of life, touched only at moments with a haunting mystery which to his mind but added to her charm. Her laughter bubbled over as water from a spring; she was careless, thought-free, light-hearted. For it is only those who remember nothing that regret nothing; and Varia had neither remembrance nor what it brings.
When he mounted and rode for Londinium that afternoon it was with the full determination to despatch his business as quickly as might be and return. He told himself amusedly that he had been singed too often, by too many flames, to care for the feeble light of one broken lamp. This was quite true. But also he acknowledged that when other lamps were wanting, a broken one might answer for an hour.
II
II
That night the sun went down in angry crimson that ate like fire through the sullen heart of clouds banked low along the horizon. In Varia's garden the shrill insect voices were hushed; the trees drooped their leaves motionless. It was a hot and breathless night, when thunder muttered distantly and vague lightnings played hide-and-seek among the clouds, and the earth was still as an animal that crouches waiting for a blow.
Eudemius entered his room shortly before midnight, while the storm menaced and would not break. His thoughts still had their way with him, and they were none too happy thoughts. By the open window stood a tall standard of wrought bronze, from the arms of which seven lamps swung by chains, their flames flaring in the faint hot breeze which entered; otherwise the room was dark. Eudemius drew a light couch near the window and stretched himself upon it, slowly, like one worn out by weariness and pain. The lamplight fell upon his face, and showed it less of a mask, more unguarded, grim and hollow-cheeked, stamped with the seal of suffering. A slave entered, without noise, and placed on a stand abowl of dewy fruit, a silver pitcher of wine, and a tall cup of the exquisite Samian ware, rose-pink, thin as a fragile egg shell. In the dim light it glowed like a ruby; Eudemius glanced at it with a faint pleasure in its beauty. As the slave turned away, he spoke.
"Hath thy lady retired?"
The man stopped in the doorway.
"Lord, I know not."
"Then find out. If not, bid her come to me here."
The man, bending, crossed his arms before his face, and went. Eudemius lay and waited, watching the wan lightning at play in the lowering sky, listening to the far-off grumble of the thunder. Scents from the garden drifted to him on the warm sickly breeze; once a bat flapped past the window. His eyes grew heavy with drowsiness.
But a step close at hand aroused him. He turned his head and saw Varia coming toward him, her face pale in the dim light. She stopped when she reached the couch, and stood waiting in silence. Eudemius rose, carefully, lest he bring on a spasm of pain, and stood under the light of the seven lamps.
"Come here to me, child!" he said. Varia came, and stood where the light fell on her face and throat; and he took her by the shoulders and looked long at her. His dark eyes passed over her from brow to feet; noted the dusky warmth of her hair, where jewels gleamed like a coiled snake's eyes; the curves of cheek and throat, the ripening grace of her slim body, half-revealed beneath her silken robe. He studied her with an impersonal criticism, as though she were a statue with whose workmanship fault might be found. Had she been a statue, he could have found no fault.
"Thou art fair, child," he said musingly, while she stood passive under his hands. "Art thou fair enough to win him, handicapped as thou art? And yet, who would take thee, when there are others for the asking, as fair as thou and with none of thy defects? If thou didst but know how to use that beauty of thine, it might make less of difference. For men have wedded fools before this. Ay, but those fools must have been half woman as well as fool; but thou—thou art all fool."
He looked at her strangely; suddenly pushed aside the robe from her shoulders and laid his hands on her soft bare flesh.
"Ay, she's fair enough!" he muttered. "If I could but lash that torpid soul of hers to life—teach her what all other women in the world know by nature and instinct! For if she have the beauty of the immortal women, without the warm spirit of sex behind it, it will avail her nothing. Passionless, she can never inspire passion. To see her mated to him—his child in her arms—a son—a son!—who should redeem for me all the bitterness and the disappointment she hath brought—would not that be better than nothing?"
His hands on her shoulders shook. She glanced up at him under her lids,—a strange glance into which there flashed something that died as it came. Her eyes were dilated, but she made no motion to push his hands from her.
"Could she win him?" Eudemius's voice was not above a whisper, yet it was tense with restrained excitement. Drops of sweat beaded his forehead; the cords of his neck were taut. "Varia, dost know, child, what thou art?"
"Ay," she answered quietly. "A fool. Thou hast said it."
Eudemius gave an exclamation of bitter impatience.
"Fool—yes, and child and woman as well. Hast thou never thought what it might be to become as other women are? To know the kiss of a man's lips on thine—to feel his arms about thee—to listen to the tale of love that is told to all but thee—"
"Tale!" said Varia, catching at the word. "Oh, I have heard tales—wonderful tales, more wonderful than any that ever were told before! And I have known the kiss of a man's lips on mine; and I have felt a man's arms about me!"
Eudemius gripped her slender shoulders, staring at her, and his face worked. Then he flung her away from him.
"Thou poor fool!" he said in contemptuous pity. He clenched his hands and strode up and down before the couch. "Oh, if I could but waken thee—if I could but waken thee! I'd use thee, poor tool as thou art—I'd make thee, a worthless pawn, queen to play my game for me! Thou art mine, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, to do with as I will. Sometimes my hands itch to shake into thee the sense thou lackest—or else to shake the useless life out of thee."
He stopped before her, breathless with thwarted passion that time after time dashed itself like surge against the inexorable rock of Circumstance, to fall back baffled and beaten.
"Tell me!" he said, in a voice grown suddenly calm. "Child o' mine, dost think that thou couldst win a man?"
It was a strange question from father to child, butthen he did not see it so. And Varia, looking at him, made a strange answer.
"I have won a man!" she said, and her voice was slow and haunting. "Body and soul I have won him; he is mine for all time to come, to do with as I will. I am a fool, but I have done this thing, and I think—" She stopped, and her voice changed and grew scornful—"I think it is but a little thing to do!"
Eudemius stared at her.
"Thou hast—" he whispered, and moistened his lips with a dry tongue. "Say that again, girl! Thou hast—Is this thy raving? Nay, tell me, who is the man?"
But another mood was on Varia. She laughed, like a rippling brook.
"He hath no name!" she said merrily. "No name—nothing; for he is nothing! He comes in the clouds and in the storms and in the moonlight, and whispers strange things which none may hear but I. His voice is the wind and his words are the rustle of the leaves, and his speech is golden as flame; and oh, the tales he hath told to me!"
Eudemius laughed shortly.
"At first I even thought—" he muttered, and broke off. "Child, are thy women always with thee?"
"Ay, save at night. I sleep alone," said Varia.
Eudemius poured wine from the silver pitcher and drank it. Outside, the rain was falling with a gentle dripping. The thunder had died; the breeze, cooler, came laden with damp earthy smells. Varia went to the window and knelt beside it, leaning out into the warm darkness. Her father's eyes followed her. But if Varia'smood had changed, his was not to be shaken off so lightly. He sat down on the couch, wiping his forehead free from sweat. Here, he was close enough to touch her, and he drew her back from the window so that she leaned against the couch and his knee.
"Varia," he said, moved by an impulse born of what had gone before, "dost love thy father?"
"Nay," said Varia, simply. "Why should I, my lord?"
"True," said Eudemius. "Why shouldst thou?"
Varia leaned her elbows on his knee, looking up at him with her chin on her hands. Her attitude held the frank fearlessness of a child.
"Does my lord father love me?" she asked, and smiled up at him. Something within him warned Eudemius to honesty.
"Nay, Varia," he said gently, and put a hand on her dark soft hair. "Thy father hath never loved thee."
Varia suddenly rested her cheek against his other hand.
"Poor father!" she murmured, as though he were somehow deserving of all sympathy for this, "Didst ever wish that I had not been born?"
"Ay," said Eudemius, still gently. "I have wished that."
Varia considered a long moment, and he knew that her eyes were on him.
"Why was I born?" she asked.
Eudemius turned his head away.
"Because thy mother loved me," he said, low and harshly.
"Because—my mother—loved thee!" Varia repeated. "Now that is strange! Did ever any one love thee?"
Eudemius started. Then he laughed.
"Habet!" he exclaimed, in the language of the arena when a gladiator is down; and laughed again. "Ay, child; once one loved me, and once I loved. Thou canst not credit such softness in me? Well, I do not blame thee; but it is truth."
"I believe," said Varia, "for thou hast told me truth before, to-night. If thou hadst said my father loved me, I should never have believed thy word again, but thou gavest me truth for the truth I gave to thee. I am a fool, and sometimes it is given to fools to know the truth."
"And therein to be wiser than the sane," Eudemius muttered. "And that is truth also." He looked at her a moment with something awakened in his face.
"Is there a change then, after all, in thee?" he said suddenly, deep in thought and study of her face. "Thrice to-night hast thou said what I did not understand, and never thought to hear thee say. Can it be that sometime in the future the dawn will break?"
Varia looked at him in her turn, a curious sidelong glance. In the dim light her face all at once showed strange to him, as occasionally one will see a well-known face in a new aspect—pale, with scarlet mouth and long veiled eyes. "Thou art something besides the child I've known; though whether that thing be good or evil—" His speech died; he gazed at her as though he would pierce the mystery which shrouded her and learn what it was that made her alien, forgetting to finish his words. "There is a change, and I cannot fathom it. What isworking in thee? Or is it the delusion of mine own imaginings? Thy face—thy eyes—have they changed also? Mine own imaginings—vain imaginings! What is there in thy life which could have changed thee? Ah, if but these next months might see thee still more changed!"
Varia rose from her knees beside him.
"Why should I be changed?" she asked. "And why wouldst have me changed? I am happy—I have been happy as I am. If the joy of life is not mine, as thou hast said so often, the sorrow of life is not mine either; and I do not wish to change!" Her voice grew and gathered passion. "I fear to change, for I know not what the change might bring. I do not understand. Oh, father—do not wish that I should change!"
She took a step toward him with outstretched, appealing hands. Eudemius watched her with critical eyes.
But even as he watched, his own face changed and went gray, and he caught his breath and put a hand against his side. His body stiffened and grew rigid, while at the same time long shudders ran through it, dumb protest of tortured nerves against what was in store for it and them.
"Go for Claudius!" Eudemius gasped; and Varia turned and ran. Eudemius flung himself back on the couch and lay there, striving with all his iron will to hold the convulsions in check. But he began to writhe, terribly, with no sound but the whistling of his breath through locked jaws. His hand, outflung, touched the cup that glowed like a ruby on the stand beside the couch. He clutched it, and crushed its fragile beautyinto atoms; and blood dripped with the wine upon the floor.
A torch gleamed outside the door, and hasty feet came running. Claudius, the physician, entered, very old, very small, with silver hair and beard that was like a snow-drift, followed by two slaves with lights and instruments. They lighted all the lamps, so that the room was bright as noon; and Claudius took from them what he wanted, and sent them both away. Then he rolled his sleeves above his elbows, and went to the couch where the silent figure lay twisting; and as he went he tucked his long white beard inside the collar of his gown.
III
III
But the plans of Marius did not fall out as he had intended. It was a month before he returned to the villa, with the prospect of remaining on British soil until another galley could be fitted out and commissioned. This was exasperating, and Marius fumed secretly and swore at the delay. Thinking to make the best of his enforced idleness by betaking himself to Aquæ Solis, the fashionable watering-place of Britain, and what solace he could find there, he found himself again disappointed. The leave he applied for was granted, but as he was starting upon his journey, word was brought to him that his father was ill. He found it nothing serious, but Livinius, grown querulous and childish in his fever, begged Marius not to leave him. So, perforce, Marius stayed, contenting himself with boar-hunting in Eudemius's vast parks, and being entertained by his host.
Eudemius, seemingly unchanged since his illness, had not forgotten that the young tribune's eyes had once looked with favor on his daughter. And since love, like life, is but a game, and much may be done by a player who handles his pawns wisely, Eudemius beganto conjure up hopes which, in spite of himself, he knew might never see fulfilment. The more he saw of Marius, the more he coveted his strength to prop his dying house. His fortune would be safe in Marius's hands, his name would be safe in Marius's keeping. For with all his faults Marius had a soldier's honor, and could guard what was given to his charge. Forthwith, then, Eudemius began to lay silent plans; to scheme indirectly, with cautious skill. It was a new game for him; he went about it much as one ruler who seeks alliance, for political ends, with a neighboring kingdom. He was entirely consistent in his course; no thought of his daughter's desires or wishes moved him—even no thought as to whether or not she had desires or wishes on the subject. Nor did he consider the personal inclinations of Marius himself. The alliance would mean much for him, saving only for one thing—a thing which yet might override all advantages. This was where Eudemius considered all his skill and finesse would be needed.
At first Eudemius mentioned this, the desire of his heart, to no living soul. He took Marius with him over his estates on his tours of inspection, tours become unexpectedly frequent; he took pains to have him present when overseers came with long tax-lists and rent-rolls to render account to their lord. Marius saw himself surrounded with every luxury art could devise and skill could execute, not as though brought forth for some occasion, but quite plainly in everyday use and service. Life, eased for him from all exertion by the unseen hands of many slaves, became a dream of indolence and content. Horses, grooms, slaves, were at his disposal; no wish of his, however lightly uttered, but wasunostentatiously fulfilled. In the midst of all this he was left with no sense that it was done with a view to impress upon him the magnificence of the villa and the villa's lord. He took it as he was intended to take it, and as it was, as a matter of course, since all his life he had been accustomed to wealth and the luxury it might bring. And, being so accustomed, he was able to appreciate justly the amount of money it must take to maintain such an establishment in such a style. He listened to the reports of overseers and stewards, all unaware that he was meant to do so; by degrees his own and his father's fortunes came to seem by contrast mean and small. He fell readily enough into ways which, reasonable for Eudemius, were extravagant for him. But, in spite of his inclinations toward the life sybaritic, it was plain that he had no intention of getting himself in debt to Eudemius in any shape or form. When Eudemius judged the time to be ripe, he brought Varia upon the scene. This he did after his own fashion, studying carefully each effect that she should make, with an artist's eye and a mind that would stop at no subterfuge to gain its end.
Livinius was convalescent, though still weak and unable to leave his bed, when Eudemius went upon a day to his apartments and was admitted. Livinius lay in bed, looking gentler and frailer than of old, with a slave reading to him from theDe iraof Seneca. He signed to the latter to leave, and held out a hand to his friend.
"Sit by me here, if you will," he said. "I have much to ask, and, I doubt not, you to tell. That worthy physician of yours is dumb as any oyster. Were it not for my boy bringing me scraps of news now and again, I should indeed feel out of touch with the world."
Eudemius seated himself beside the bed, his back, as usual, to the light.
"The world wags to its own appointed end," he said carelessly. "Have you heard, then, that Rome has again refused to send troops to our aid? Verily, Britain is left to struggle with her independence like a dog with a bone too large for it. There is but a sorry time in store for us, if present indications point aright. You have asked me often to go back with you to Rome, and I have been long considering it. But Rome has twenty strong men where Britain has one, and I think that my place is here. To my mind, the people of the land, seeing those in power withdrawing, and not knowing what to do of themselves, will turn like sheep to any who will stand by them. Why, man, if one played his game with skill in this coming crisis, and kept from joining in the panic into which others have flung themselves headlong, he might make his power here little short of absolute, and reap his reward when Rome has settled her affairs and the storm has blown over. One might become a second Carausius, another Constantine. Already, since the troops of Ætius have gone, folk believe they hear that endless storm muttering again in the West and South, and tell tales of new invasions of Jutes and Saxons. It is a fact also that merchants going north require a double bonus on the goods they take. What Britain will do without the hand to hold to which has led her for so long, is a question which no man can answer and all men ask. But these be weighty topics to concern a sickroom, and I have other matters to discuss with thee."
Livinius turned inquiring eyes upon him, but Eudemius was staring past him, thoughtfully.
"A matter which touches me nearly," he said, and all at once dropped into a more familiar mode of speech. "Thou art my oldest friend, and there is none to whom I would sooner speak in confidence. Thou knowest that I am growing old. Soon the gods of the shades will lay their hands upon mine eyes, and my daughter and my house will be left alone. And a heavy time of trial it will be for her, incompetent, with the burden of my wealth upon her. Were it not for this, I could willingly leave all this; but some one first I must find to charge himself with that burden for the recompense it may bring him. And there is but one way to do this; I must mate her to some worthy man. If he be in humble circumstances, her gold shall alter that; if he be great, it shall make him greater. To take her with it would be, after all, but a little thing, since she is too much a child to want more than is given her, and is content with little. With her unmated, as she is, fancy what would follow were she alone. No—it needs a strong hand to guard what I have guarded; but it is a task well worth the taking. And it is in my mind that I have found that strong hand I seek—if so it be that the owner thereof is willing."
He paused, to see that the sick man's eyes were on him in quickened interest.
"That man, friend," Eudemius said slowly, "is thy son. Him I would have, and none other, to reign in my stead and take the place of that son denied me, who was to rear his children in the traditions of my house and his. What say you to this, friend, if it chances that Marius himself is willing?"
For a moment there was a pause. Livinius lay backon his pillows, and his face was a battleground of contending thought. Plainly it said: "Power is great, but gold is greater, since it can purchase power; therefore gold is a good thing to have. Yet no bargain was ever offered without a 'but,' and what goes with this bargain of thine, O friend? An incubus which a man might well hesitate to let fasten upon him; a hindrance to himself and, it may be, a menace to generations yet unborn. And yet, the prize is worth risking much for, and the temptation is great."
At this point came wavering, uncertainty, a look of greed, cautious and eager. Eudemius, watching, let the battle wage itself. When Livinius finally spoke, it was slowly, weighing his words with care.
"You have spoken with all the frankness one friend could wish from another. It is only meet that I too should be as frank. If my words offend, remember that it is I who shall grieve most. Your daughter, fair though she is, and lovely, is yet a child, despite her years,—a child who needs the care and thought which only love can give. Needing all, she could give nothing save herself to her husband; and man's needs are of the spirit as well as of the flesh. And suppose he wanted not the gift; what would there be for him? You see, I set aside all mention of her dower; for though a man may marry gold, he must marry the woman also. I have watched Marius from his cradle; I have marked when his nature followed the lines along which I strove to train it, and when it turned of itself into new channels of its own. And of these channels, some, I confess, ran widely counter to those which I had planned. No parent ever saw a child grow precisely to the measure of the idealof which he dreamed; it may be that every father under the sun is doomed to disappointment at some trait or other in the child of his flesh."
Eudemius looked away from him, nodding soberly.
"So it hath been with me," said Livinius. "Marius has been a good son; but a good man he has not been. For a bad man may make a good son, even though a bad son never makes a good man. But I am not blind, and year by year have I watched the changes in him, some for the better, some for the worse. When he was a child I chastised; when he was a youth I counselled; when he became a man I could do no more than stand aside and watch him start upon the road he had marked out for himself. And I tell you, Eudemius,—and you may guess if the words come easily,—that were I in your place I would not give my daughter, being what she is, to such a man as he. For her sake as well as his I say this. He is my son, and my house is his home for so long as he wills it, and what I have is his. But to your daughter, young, innocent, knowing nothing of the world, and less than nothing of men, he would bring only unhappiness and woe. She could not understand him; he would be at no pains to understand her. Whether love might raise him to its own height, I dare not say; rather I fear that he would lower it to him. He is passionate, yet cold; but he is strong, and to men he is loyal and a lasting friend. He is a soldier through and through; no mistress, were she never so madly loved, could come before his sword. For to him, arms mean ambition and the fame he has set himself to gain; love is a dalliance by the way, pleasant for the hour, soon forgotten. Sorry sport for a wife, you see! There you have him, as I, his father,know him. And how can I, his father, say these things of him, who should stand with him against all the world? Because he needs not my help to win his battles; and there is one who in my mind may need it sorely."
And again there was a silence. Eudemius rose.
"Thank thee, friend," he said. "Thy words have made me to hunger all the more for that son of thine. Mine also he shall be, if I can compass it. What need he give her but a name?—and that, in good sooth, it will not hurt him to bestow."
He turned on his heel and went away; and Livinius looked after him long and gravely.
When Marius entered, some time later, it was to find his father alone and in deep thought. Marius inquired how he had been feeling that day, and if he thought his strength returning. Livinius answered abstractedly. He was aware that Eudemius's plan was taking root in his mind; coming to weigh its pros and cons, he found that after all it might not be such a bad thing for Marius—and himself. He motioned Marius to seat himself. Marius obeyed, waiting for what his father might have to say. But Livinius kept his abstracted silence, and presently Marius himself spoke.
"Will Eudemius return with you to Rome?"
Livinius shook his head thoughtfully.
"I fear not. I have tried to persuade him, but—I think his plans lie here. For one thing, he does not like the idea of going back with that daughter of his."
Marius turned a slow glance on his father.
"It is a pity about that girl," he said indifferently. "She is very fair—as fair as any of Rome's beauties."
"And as wealthy. When her father hath undergonehis fate, his estates will pass to her," said Livinius. He did not look at his son, and his voice was careless.
"It is a pity," Marius repeated, noncommittally. Livinius put his own construction upon the words.
"You mean—her misfortune? Ay, true. But many a man would overlook even that for sake of the gold she would bring him."
"And that is true also," Marius said. "And yet—it were a risky thing for a man to give his sons a mother found so wanting."
So that Livinius knew that Marius's thoughts, like his own, had strayed into those paths wherein Eudemius would lead them. He changed the subject then, speaking of the delayed transport and affairs in Gaul. Then he became weary, being still weak, and Marius left him.
The next evening, Marius, returning from hunting to the villa just before dusk, unwontedly thoughtful over prospects which his mind was beginning to conjure up, to look at, and play with, as it were, was met by a slave who said that the Lady Varia sent word that she wished to see him on his return. Somewhat surprised at this, for he had scarcely seen her, much less spoken with her, since his arrival from Londinium, he followed the man to the door of her apartments. Here he passed a second slave, a tall fellow with a shock of black, unkempt hair, who was trimming a lamp near by. This one turned his head to watch him as he entered, with fierce wolf eyes into which leaped sudden jealous distrust. But a slave was a slave to Marius; and so heedless was he of the man's presence, that later he could not have told whether or not he had been there.
Just inside the door Marius's guide crossed his armsbefore his face, bending low, and left him, as though at an order. Marius, again surprised at this, stood and waited. The room, lofty and warm and floored with exquisite tiling, seemed to overlook a garden, where dusk was gathering fast. It was furnished sumptuously, and was filled with flowers which stood in great jars of gorgeous Eastern coloring. Halfway down its centre ran one of the dwarf walls so common in Roman rooms, which was made to serve as the back of a low and cushioned couch on either side of it. A lamp of wrought bronze stood near, and by its light Marius saw that a figure was lying on the couch, with head thrown back against the cushions and one white arm hanging over the side.
"Lady Varia?" Marius exclaimed. She did not answer, and he saw that she seemed asleep. He went to the couch, walking softly, with a faint wonder as to why she had sent for him. She lay with long lashes sweeping her cheeks and her warm lips parted, in the careless abandon of a child, infinitely graceful, full of allurement. The thought entered his mind that it was a pose, a piece of pretty trickery. He bent down until his lips all but touched her cheek and the perfume of her hair rose to him, so that had she been feigning she must have given sign, or else been better skilled in the gentle art of flirting than he believed. But she slept on, unconscious, with slow, regular breathing, so still that he could see the beat of her heart under the filmy stuff of her tunic.
And even as he watched her, so another, unseen, watched him,—another with gaunt, haggard face and calculating eyes that took in every move of his pawns in the game to which he had set them. With his father'swords, in which he had read the hint, clear in his mind, Marius stood looking long at the sleeping girl. Patrician she was from the crown of her dusky head to the tip of her jewelled sandal. Fair she was,—and his breath came shorter as his gaze wandered unchecked over her,—eminently desirable, and yet—He found himself confronted by the unavoidable fact of her affliction. A man might well hesitate in face of all that it could mean. One could not tell—that was the trouble. He realized, all at once, that her eyes were open, and that she was looking at him, without speech or motion. He drew back, with a certain wholly unconscious veiling of expression, and spoke.
"You sent for me, Lady Varia?"
She raised herself on an elbow, pushing the hair out of her eyes to look up at him. With the motion, the jewelled fibula which held her tunic at the shoulder became unfastened, letting the drapery slip lower over snowy neck and arm. He noticed that if she saw this, she made no effort to replace it.
"Sent for you? Not I!" she said, and tapped her fingers on her lips to stifle a yawn. "Or if I did, I have forgotten. Why should I have sent for you?"
She let herself sink back in the cushions, and he pulled a seat near the couch and sat down. She began to play idly with the coiled golden snake around her bare arm, looking down at it with long sleepy eyes. Again, as once before, the novelty of this lack of attention piqued him into a passing interest.
"If I disturb you, I will go away," he offered. "You were sleeping; it were pity to disturb such sweet repose."
"You do not disturb me," she answered, with all calmness, not looking at him. "Why should you? If you like to stay, you may. I am not asleep now."
"Did you have pleasant dreams?" Marius asked, as he might have asked it of a child. She turned scornful eyes on him.
"I do not dream asleep!" she said. "Only when I wake. What are dreams but thoughts, and how can one think, asleep?"
He looked at her, surprised. She relapsed into silence, unwound the snake from her arm, at length, and took to turning it over and over in her fingers, letting the light play on its emerald eyes and the rich chasing of its scales. He continued to watch her, with greater freedom under her entire indifference. He felt that, if he should get up and leave her, she would take no notice, but lie there just the same, drowsy-eyed and indifferent, turning and turning the golden snake. This slipped from her fingers after a time and dropped to the floor at his feet. He picked it up, and as she held out her hand to receive it back, he clasped her wrist gently and began to coil the snake about her arm, above the elbow. She let him do it; emboldened, he kept her hand, when the jewel was in place, and pressed it gently. But she drew it away, not as though in rebuke, however, and examined the armlet to see that it was on properly.
"Is it not right?" Marius asked, amused. "Let me do it again; this time I will make sure."
She shook her head, with a slow smile at him. Greatly daring, he leaned nearer, and fastened the loosened pin on her shoulder. In the operation, his fingers touched her soft flesh. But she seemed not to noticehim at all; so that quite suddenly he felt baffled and perplexed.
"You are a strange girl!" he said abruptly. Again she smiled.
"Why?" she asked. "Because you cannot understand me, you call me strange?"
He laughed.
"Perhaps that is it, O my Lady Wisdom. But truly I begin to think you a riddle worth the reading. It may be, that with somewhat of teaching, you might prove a pupil apt enough for any man."
She looked at him eagerly.
"Is it a game?" she asked. "You taught me one before, and I liked it. Wilt teach me also this other game? Is it a good game?"
"Ay," said Marius, amusement in his voice. "It is a good game—the finest game in the world, for the one who wins. And, indeed, I have it in mind to teach thee, thou pretty witch, the more so since I should have the methods of no other to unteach. See, then, I'll show thee the first move. Give me thy hand—so."
Varia held out her hand, leaning back on her pillows with eager eyes of anticipation. Marius took the hand. It was small and soft and fragrant, with rosy, polished nails.
"This, you must know, is a game at which but two can properly play," he explained, as a schoolmaster might propound theories to a class. "Three have sometimes tried it, but the third in most cases has wished he had kept away. Most players divide it into three parts, for the sake of convenience. The first, for the woman; the second, for the man; the third, usually, for the lawyers.This latter may be played in various ways—sometimes is omitted altogether. A great advantage of this game is that so many rules govern it, that whatever one does, is in accordance with some rules, even though it may be at variance with certain others."
He turned the little hand over and kissed the palm.
"Certain things there be which every player should possess," he added in the same tone. "For the woman, beauty—or if not this, a cleverness which is clever enough to manifest itself only in results. Also, if a woman hath not beauty, it is imperative that she be an adept at the game. Innocence, in one party, not in both, is a valuable asset, since one of the objects of the game is the winning of it. Were both to have it, it would become in very truth a child's game. Wealth is also a good thing to have,—and this for both players,—since one or both are apt to pay dearly in the end. And wealth is also nearly always an object in the game. It hath many points, you see, which must be remembered."
"I fear it is a hard game," said Varia, and shook her head in doubt. "I—I cannot remember things very well sometimes."
"Even that hath been found an advantage at times," said Marius, and laughed softly. He changed his place and sat on the edge of the couch beside her, and possessed himself of her other hand. Varia glanced from her prisoned fingers to his face and back again.
"The game may be played fast, or it may be played slowly," said Marius, his eyes on her perplexed face. "In most cases, the faster the better, lest one or other of the players should tire. What say you, sweetheart—shall ours be short and therefore merrier?"
He drew her back into his arms, and raised her face with his free hand and kissed her lips.
"No!" said Varia, quickly, and struggled slightly to sit up.
"Yes—that is in the game!" said Marius, and would not let her go. "Does it come hard at first, my sweet? Never mind—soon you will like it better. Besides, I have told you that it is part of the game. So—rest quiet, and I will show you how else it goes."
In her eyes he read a struggle to recall something gone before and all but forgotten; a mental groping, painful in its intensity. She ceased her resistance, and he drew her closer and kissed her many times, with a growing passion which surprised himself. Her breath came quicker, but in her eyes was only the dumb striving after things forgotten, with no fear at all nor anger with him. His lips strayed where they would; in her strange absorption she seemed scarcely conscious of him.
"Truly I did well to call thee strange!" Marius said low in her ear. "Did one not know the facts of the case he might well count thee as good a player as himself."
Varia wrenched her hands from his and sat up. So swift was her motion that he had let her go before he knew it. She put her hands to her temples.
"But I have played this game before!" she cried, unheeding him. "I know now—oh, I know now! Thou wilt tell me that I am beautiful, and that thou lovest me, and thou wilt say that all is not well with thee for the pain thou hast. And I will stroke thy head to ease the pain, as sometimes my lord father will have me do. That is how the game goes. And Marcus comes and tries to play as he came before; he was the third, asthou hast told, who wished that he had not. But it should be in the garden; it was in the garden before!"
"Now what is this raving?" Marius exclaimed, wholly uncomprehending. He tried to take her again, but she slid off the couch and escaped him. He pursued and caught her, but instead of the passive yielding he expected, he met resistance which was unlooked-for.
"No! I'll have no more!" she cried. "Let me go—I do not wish to play this game with thee! Always he stops when I bid him—thou must do the same. I do not like this thy way. He is not rough, but gentle, and I do not fear him. Oh, let me go!"
"Thou hast played this game before, then?" said Marius. "Be still, girl! I'll not hurt thee, but I will not let thee go. Is there more in this than I had fancied? Are thy words mere idle raving? By the gods, I think not! Answer me what questions I shall ask, and I'll let thee go, not sooner. I have a mind to know the truth of this!"
She stood still, half in tears, breathing fast, like a frightened child.
"Hast thou played this game before?" Marius asked.
"Ay," she murmured, like a child brought to task, and tried again to release herself as though to escape punishment.
"With a man didst thou play it?"
"Ay, with a man."
"What man?"
She ceased her futile efforts to escape, and wrung her hands helplessly.
"I will not tell! He said that if my lord father knew it he would be displeased!" she wept.
"I think it likely that he would," said Marius, grimly. "But to tell me would not be telling him. It may be that I can help thee. There, never cry like that! Am I not thy friend?"
"I know not!" she sobbed. "Oh, I am frightened! Let me go, I pray thee!"
"Tell me first!" Marius persisted. He cast a hasty glance around. "Quick, for we shall not be alone much longer. Tell me, I say!"
She only wept, her face hidden in her hands. Marius's temper, a fragile thing at best, gave way.
"Never think to keep it from me! I'll have it whether thou wilt or no," he said roughly. The idea of an intruder upon what he had suddenly come to consider his own domain was not to be tolerated. Varia again struggled, with violence, and finding herself held fast, screamed loudly.
"Hush, little fool!" Marius exclaimed. "I am not hurting thee!"
"Let the girl go, lord!" said a voice behind them. Marius turned his head, to see a figure bearing down upon them, lean and tall, with a shock of black hair and angry eyes. Varia, turning at the same instant in Marius's grasp, saw the man, and cried:
"Make him to let me go! He hath tried to make me tell thy name—do not thou tell it!"
"So!" Marius exclaimed in triumph, catching the clew. "Thou art the man—thou!" His tone held wrath and amazed disgust.
The slave stood his ground.
"Let the girl go!" he repeated. It might well have been that never had a man used such a tone to Mariusin his life before. From a slave it was not to be brooked.
"Get you gone, you dog!" he said savagely. "Later I'll settle with you, if it be that my suspicions be correct. How dare you enter here unbidden?"
"I heard my lady cry out," Nicanor answered. Varia's voice broke into his speech.
"I tell thee make him to let me go! He is a beast, and I hate him—I hate him!"
Rather than prolong the scene before a slave, Marius let her go. She ran to Nicanor and caught his arm.
"Take me away!" she cried through tears. "I will not stay with him!"
"It were best that you should go," Marius agreed promptly. "As for you, fellow—"
"He shall come with me!" Varia said imperiously. "You will harm him—I will not have him stay. Go yourself, bad man!"
"There will be no harm done, my lady," Nicanor said gently. There was all possible respect in his voice, but Varia went, obedient, with a last look backward on the threshold. Marius turned upon Nicanor.
"Now, who are you?" he asked curtly.
"You see me—a slave," Nicanor made reply. His voice was sullen; he was cornered, and he knew it. Also he was powerless, unable to strike a blow in his own defence; and who would see that justice was done a slave?
Marius sat down on the couch and eyed him. Nicanor returned his gaze with watchful eyes alert for any move.
"I have seen your face before!" Marius said suddenly, awaking to a consciousness of the fact. Nicanoranswered nothing. The two eyed one another in silence, neither yielding an inch, the Roman coldly haughty, the slave always watchful.
"Hast ever held communication with the Lady Varia?" Marius asked.
"I have served her," Nicanor answered.
Marius laughed, looking him up and down as though he had been a horse put up for sale.
"So I begin to think!" he muttered. "After what fashion, dog?"
Nicanor's eyes blazed beneath their shaggy brows; his brown hands clenched in fury.
"As a servant should," he said harshly.
Again Marius laughed.
"So! That drew blood, did it? What has passed between you? Have you, you base-born clod, dared draw her attention to you, and she a noble's daughter? Speak, you fool, if you would not die the death!"
Nicanor raised his head slowly and looked his questioner in the eyes, a defiance as direct as insolent bravado could make it. Marius's thin lips drew tighter.
"You refuse to answer, do you? Do you know that for this you will be broken on the rack at the lifting of my finger? And if you refuse to speak, this shall be done before another day is past. You have a chance now which you will not have again, to deny or to confess. And it is not every one who would give it!"
"My lord hath not questioned me. To no other am I accountable," said Nicanor.
Marius grunted scornfully.
"You fool! Do you think your silence can save you? I'll have the story from Lady Varia; how may shewithhold it? Her own lips shall seal your guilt, as already they have convicted you."
This was true. Nicanor knew it, but he did not flinch. All that was left to him was to die game, and this he knew also.
Marius all at once wearied of his examination.
"Be off with you!" he ordered insolently. "I'll have you cringing yet before I am through with you."
Nicanor turned on his heel, with no obeisance such as a slave should make, and strode out of the room. Marius gave a short, angry laugh.
"The brute will not whine! By all the Furies, he's worth the breaking. Now, methinks, I have my scornful lady where I want her—and my lord as well. This slave may be a weapon worth the having, since my foot is on his neck also. We shall soon see!"