The Unwilling Vestal | Page 6

if you want to see
her you can come to her, for she will not come to you."
For a moment there was a tense silence.
Pulfennius spoke first.
"If this is a sample of the sort of deportment which my future
daughter-in-law is expected to outgrow I might as well be shown just
what this kind of behavior is like. Let us acquiesce and go to the little
witch, if you do not object."
"I don't object at all to going," his host replied, "but I object to her
behavior; I'll make her smart for it. Come, let us have it over with; I'll
show you a submissive Brinnaria or I'll know the reason why."
They stood up and from the open atrium passed into a narrow passage
lighted only from the two ends and so into the larger courtyard with
gleaming marble columns at each end and long rows of them down
each side. The tank under the open sky was much larger than that in the
atrium and had two fountains in it. Pigeons cooed on the tiles of the
roofs, and two or three of them strutted on the mosaic pavement among
the columns.

The party, dumbfounded and stunned, stood without voice or
movement, gazing at the picture before them.
The pavement was a cool grayish white in effect, for its mosaic work
was all of pale neutral tints. Above it the background was all
white,--white marble walls, the white marble polished pillars of the
peristyle, white marble entablature above them, the general whiteness
emphasized by the mere streak of red tiled roof visible against the
intense blue of the sky.
The only color in the picture was to the left of the tank and close to it,
where there had been set a big armchair upholstered in blue tapestry. In
it sat a tall, fair-haired, curly-headed lad, with merry blue eyes. He
wore a robe of pale green, the green of young onion tops. Against that
green the red of Brinnaria's gown showed strident and glary, for
Brinnaria was sitting on his lap. His arms were round her waist, hers
about his neck. She was slowly swinging her blue-shod feet
rhythmically and was kissing the lad audibly and repeatedly. As her
elders stood still, petrified, mute and motionless with amazement, she
imprinted a loud smack on the lad's lips, laid her cheek roguishly to his
and peered archly at them, saying:
"Glad to see you again, Pulfennius; what do you think of me for a
daughter-in-law?"
"I do not think of you for a daughter-in-law," Pulfennius snarled
furiously.
He turned angrily to Brinnarius.
"What does this mean?" he queried.
His host echoed him.
"Brinnaria!" he called, imperatively. "What does this mean?"
"Mean?" she repeated. "It means that I am making the most of Almo
while I can. I love Almo; I've promised to forget him, to be a good wife
to Calvaster, and of course I'm going to keep my word. >From the
moment I'm married to Calvaster I'll never so much as look at Almo, let
alone touch him. So I'm touching him all I can while I have the
chance."
She paused, kissed Almo twice, lingeringly and loudly, and looked up
again.
"How's that for kissing, Calvaster?" she chirped. "Don't you wish it was
you?"

"Come, son!" Pulfennius spluttered, "let us be gone! This is no place
for us. We are being mocked and insulted."
"Nonsense, Pulfennius!" his host exclaimed. "Can't you see that I had
no part in this, that the minx devised it all by herself expressly to thwart
me? Don't let her have the satisfaction of outmanoeuvering both of us.
Don't let a mere prank of a child spoil all our arrangements. She'll be a
good wife as she says."
"A good wife!" Pulfennius snorted. 'I much doubt whether she can now
ever be a good wife to any man. I'm sure she'll never be a wife to my
son. You'd never convince me that she's fit to be my son's wife. Make
her a Vestal, indeed! She a Vestal? She's much more likely to be
something very different!"
"Do you mean to insinuate--" his host began.
"I mean to insinuate anything and everything appropriate to her wanton
behavior," Pulfennius raged.
The two men glared at each other in a silence through which could be
heard the cooing of the doves, the trickle of the two fountains,
Brinnaria's low chuckle and the faint lisping sound of three distinct
kisses.
"I beg your pardon!" spoke a voice behind them.
The four looked around.
"What brings you here, Segontius?" Brinnarius asked.
"One of my slaves brought me word," the intruder explained, "that my
son had entered this house. I knew you had not changed your mind
since you forbade him to cross your threshold,