The Lions Brood | Page 6

and he just let his big sword drop on your head. I got Caius to show me about it, and I was the Gaul. Caius did not stab me, but I let the stick fall pretty hard, and Caius had a sore head for two days. I meant it for you, because you are trying to make an old woman of me when I am hardly a girl."
"Marcia--" began Lucius; but she raised her hand warningly and went on:--
"Do you want me to tell you why my father will not let you marry me now? There are two reasons. One because I don't want him to, and another because he thinks you must do something great to wipe out the stain of a Roman centurion's even being carried away before the Gauls."
"That will be an easy task, judging by the news we receive each day. I wish I felt as certain of the safety of the Republic as I am that my honour shall be satisfactorily vindicated."
He spoke bitterly, but she went on without taking note of his meaning.
"These are auspicious words, my Lucius. You will regain your honour; father will once more receive you into his favour, and, by that time, I shall doubtless be old enough to marry,--perhaps too old,--but, no, I must not wait so long as that. Perhaps I shall have married some one else by the time you are worthy of my favour."
"More probably I shall have ceased to care for the favour of living men and women."
"Truly? And you think you will have to die? Perhaps you will be a Decius Mus, and stand on the javelin and wear the Cincture Gabinus; and then I shall mourn for you and hang so many garlands on your tomb that all the shades of your friends will be mad with jealousy--"
"Marcia, is it possible for you to be serious?"
He was pale with suppressed passion, and, as he spoke, he stepped forward and laid his hand upon her wrist.
She sprang back and half raised a light staff she carried, while her face flushed crimson.
"I will be more serious than will please you," she said, "if you please me as little as you do now. Learn, I am not your wife that you should seek to restrain me, and it is quite possible that I never shall be."
"You speak truly," he said; "it is quite possible that no woman shall be a new mother to the house of Fidenas--that our name shall die in me. So be it; and may the gods only avert the evils that threaten the Republic, nor look upon one of the race of the Trojan Segestes as an unworthy offering."
Bending his head in respectful salutation, he turned toward the entrance hall.
Marcia stood silent beside the fountain, and her face clouded with thought. The sound of her lover's footsteps grew fainter and fainter. She started forward as if to follow him. Then she stopped and listened. The noise of the street had drowned their echoes; the door had creaked twice on its pivots. He was gone. Then she called, "Lucius!" but there was no answer. Her eyes drooped with a little frown of regret, but in a moment she turned away laughing.
"Never mind. He cannot do anything very desperate yet, and I will treat him better next time--perhaps."

III.
PARTING.
The ensuing days were pregnant with rumour and action. The waves of terror and despair that lashed over the city, as blow after blow fell, had now receded. The white banner, that was always lowered at the approach of an enemy, still spread its undulating folds above Janiculum; the crops and fruit trees and vines smiled upon the hillsides; the flocks and herds browsed peacefully along the Campagna with never a Numidian pillager to disturb their serenity; and, amid all, there was no rumour of allied gates opened to receive the invader, no welcome from the Italians whom he had striven to conciliate. Courage returned, and with courage firmness, and with firmness confidence to endure and dare and do, so long as invaders presumed to set foot upon the heritage of Rome.
How far this new confidence was born of the news that the Carthaginian was turning aside to the west, through Umbria and Picenum, how far by the rumour that Spoletum had closed her gates and repulsed his vanguard, or how far by wrath at the tales of ravage and the numberless murders of Roman citizens that marked his line of march, it would be difficult to apportion.
However these, the city was now seething with energetic preparation. The Senate sat daily and into each night. No word of peace was uttered--all was war and revenge. Quintus Fabius Maximus was elected pro-dictator by a vote of the Comitia--not dictator, because that could only be done through appointment by