A Friend of Caesar | Page 5

well. But how you have changed, sir--"
But Drusus was off. The path was familiar. Through the trees he caught
glimpses of the stately mazes of colonnades of the Lentulan villa,
surrounded by its artificially arranged gardens, and its wide stretches of
lawn and orchard. The grove had been his playground. Here was the
oak under which Cornelia and he had gathered acorns. The remnants of
the little brush house they had built still survived. His step quickened.
He heard the rush of the little stream that wound through the grove.
Then he saw ahead of him a fern thicket, and the brook flashing its
water beyond. In his recollection a bridge had here crossed the
streamlet. It had been removed. Just across, swayed the huge cypress.
Drusus stepped forward. At last! He pushed carefully through the
thicket, making only a little noise, and glanced across the brook.
There were ferns all around the cypress. Ivies twined about its trunk.

On the bank the green turf looked dry, but cool. Just under the tree the
brook broke into a miniature cascade, and went rippling down in a
score of pygmy, sparkling waterfalls. On a tiny promontory a marble
nymph, a fine bit of Greek sculpture, was pouring, without respite,
from a water-urn into the gurgling flood. But Drusus did not gaze at the
nymph. Close beside the image, half lying, half sitting, in an abandon
only to be produced by a belief that she was quite alone, rested a young
woman. It was Cornelia.
Drusus had made no disturbance, and the object on which he fastened
his eyes had not been in the least stirred out of a rather deep reverie. He
stood for a while half bashful, half contemplative. Cornelia had taken
off her shoes and let her little white feet trail down into the water. She
wore only her white tunic, and had pushed it back so that her arms were
almost bare. At the moment she was resting lazily on one elbow, and
gazing abstractedly up at the moving ocean of green overhead. She was
only sixteen; but in the warm Italian clime that age had brought her to
maturity. No one would have said that she was beautiful, from the point
of view of mere softly sensuous Greek beauty. Rather, she was
handsome, as became the daughter of Cornelii and Claudii. She was tall;
her hair, which was bound in a plain knot on the back of her head, was
dark--almost black; her eyes were large, grey, lustrous, and on occasion
could be proud and angry. Yet with it all she was pretty--pretty, said
Drusus to himself, as any girl he had seen in Athens. For there were
coy dimples in her delicate little chin, her finely chiselled features were
not angular, while her cheeks were aglow with a healthy colour that
needed no rouge to heighten. In short, Cornelia, like Drusus, was a
Roman; and Drusus saw that she was a Roman, and was glad.
Presently something broke the reverie. Cornelia's eyes dropped from
the treetops, and lighted up with attention. One glance across the brook
into the fern thicket; then one irrepressible feminine scream; and then:--
"Cornelia!" "Quintus!"
Drusus sprang forward, but almost fell into the brooklet. The bridge
was gone. Cornelia had started up, and tried to cover her arms and
shake her tunic over her feet. Her cheeks were all smiles and blushes.

But Drusus's situation was both pathetic and ludicrous. He had his
fiancée almost in his arms, and yet the stream stopped him. Instantly
Cornelia was in laughter.
"Oh! My second Leander," she cried, "will you be brave, and swim
again from Abydos to Sestos to meet your Hero?"
"Better!" replied Drusus, now nettled; "see!" And though the leap was a
long one he cleared it, and landed close by the marble nymph.
Drusus had not exactly mapped out for himself the method of
approaching the young woman who had been his child playmate.
Cornelia, however, solved all his perplexity. Changing suddenly from
laughter into what were almost tears, she flung her arms around his
neck, and kissed him again and again.
"Oh, Quintus! Quintus!" she cried, nearly sobbing, "I am so glad you
have come!"
"And I am glad," said the young man, perhaps with a tremor in his
voice.
"I never knew how I wanted you, until you are here," she continued; "I
didn't look for you to-day. I supposed you would come from Puteoli
to-morrow. Oh! Quintus, you must be very kind to me. Perhaps I am
very stupid. But I am tired, tired."
Drusus looked at her in a bit of astonishment.
"Tired! I can't see that you look fatigued."
"Not in body," went on Cornelia, still holding on to him. "But here, sit
down on the grass.