"And as Homer puts it, so with us," cried Cornelia, at length: "'And so the pair had joy in happy love, and joyed in talking too, and each relating; she, the royal lady, what she had endured at home, watching the wasteful throng of suitors; and he, high-born Odysseus, what miseries he brought on other men, and bore himself in anguish;--all he told, and she was glad to hear.'" So laughed Cornelia when all their stories were finished, likening their reunion to that of the son of Laertes and the long-faithful Penelope. "How long were Penelope and Odysseus asunder?" quoth Drusus. "Twenty years." "_Vah!_ We have not been sundered twenty months or one-third as many. How shall we make the time fly more rapidly?" "I know not," said Cornelia, for the first time looking down and sighing, "a lifetime seems very long; but lifetimes will pass. I shall be an old woman in a few years; and my hair will be all grey, and you won't love me." "_Eho_," cried Drusus, "do you think I love you for your hair?" "I don't know," replied Cornelia, shaking her head, "I am afraid so. What is there in me more than any other woman that you should love; except--" and here she raised her face half-seriously, half in play--"I am very beautiful? Ah! if I were a man, I would have something else to be loved for; I would have eloquence, or strength, or power of command, or wisdom in philosophy. But no, I can be loved for only two things; an ignoble or a poor man would take me if I were hideous as Atropos, for I am noble, and, if my uncle were an honest guardian, rich. But you need not regard these at all, so--" and she brushed her face across Drusus's cheek, touching it with her hair.