A Friend of Caesar | Page 6

Let me hold your hands. You do not mind. I want to
talk with you. No, don't interrupt. I must tell you. I have been here in
Præneste only a week. I wanted to get away from Baiæ.[17] I was
afraid to stay there with my mother."
[17] The famous watering-place on the Bay of Naples.

"Afraid to stay at that lovely seashore house with your mother!"
exclaimed Drusus, by no means unwilling to sit as entreated, but rather
bewildered in mind.
"I was afraid of Lucius Ahenobarbus, the consular[18] Domitius's
second son. I don't like him! there!" and Cornelia's grey eyes lit up with
menacing fire.
[18] An ex-consul was known by this title.
"Afraid of Lucius Ahenobarbus!" laughed Drusus. "Well, I don't think I
call him a very dear friend. But why should he trouble you?"
"It was ever since last spring, when I was in the new theatre[19] seeing
the play, that he came around, thrust himself upon me, and tried to pay
attentions. Then he has kept them up ever since; he followed us to Baiæ;
and the worst of it is, my mother and uncle rather favour him. So I had
Stephanus, my friend the physician, say that sea air was not good for
me, and I was sent here. My mother and uncle will come in a few days,
but not that fellow Lucius, I hope. I was so tired trying to keep him
off."
[19] Built by Pompeius the Great, in 55-54 B.C.
"I will take care of the knave," said Drusus, smiling. "So this is the
trouble? I wonder that your mother should have anything to do with
such a fellow. I hear in letters that he goes with a disreputable gang. He
is a boon companion with Marcus Læca, the old Catilinian,[20] who is
a smooth-headed villain, and to use a phrase of my father's good friend
Cicero--'has his head and eyebrows always shaved, that he may not be
said to have one hair of an honest man about him.' But he will have to
reckon with me now. Now it is my turn to talk. Your long story has
been very short. Nor is mine long. My old uncle Publius Vibulanus is
dead. I never knew him well enough to be able to mourn him bitterly.
Enough, he died at ninety; and just as I arrive at Puteoli comes a
message that I am his sole heir. His freedmen knew I was coming,
embalmed the body, and wait for me to go to Rome to-morrow to give
the funeral oration and light the pyre. He has left a fortune fit to

compare with that of Crassus[21]--real estate, investments, a lovely
villa at Tusculum. And now I--no, we--are wealthy beyond avarice.
Shall we not thank the Gods?"
[20] A member of the band who with Catiline conspired in 63 B.C. to
overthrow the Roman government.
[21] The Roman millionaire who had just been slain in Parthia.
"I thank them for nothing," was her answer; then more shyly, "except
for your own coming; for, Quintus, you--you--will marry me before
very long?"
"What hinders?" cried the other, in the best of spirits. "To-morrow I go
to Rome; then back again! And then all Præneste will flock to our
marriage train. No, pout no more over Lucius Ahenobarbus. He shan't
pay disagreeable attentions. And now over to the old villa; for
Mamercus is eating his heart out to see me!"
And away they went arm in arm.
Drusus's head was in the air. He had resolved to marry Cornelia, cost
what it might to his desires. He knew now that he was affianced to the
one maiden in the world quite after his own heart.
III
The paternal villa of Drusus lay on the lower part of the slope of the
Præneste citadel, facing the east. It was a genuine country and farming
estate--not a mere refuge from the city heat and hubbub. The Drusi had
dwelt on it for generations, and Quintus had spent his boyhood upon it.
The whole mass of farm land was in the very pink of cultivation. There
were lines of stately old elms enclosing the estate; and within, in
regular sequence, lay vineyards producing the rather poor Præneste
wine, olive orchards, groves of walnut trees, and many other fruits.
Returning to the point where he had left the carriage, Drusus led
Cornelia up a broad avenue flanked by noble planes and cypresses.
Before them soon stood, or rather stretched, the country house. It was a

large grey stone building, added to, from time to time, by successive
owners. Only in front did it show signs of modern taste and elegance.
Here ran a colonnade of twelve red porphyry pillars, with Corinthian
capitals. The part of the house reserved for the master