‘How came it to slip my mind, and I only received it this morning as I left my chamber,’ said Sejanus, drawing forth a crumpled paper and offering it to his friend. ‘Read!’ Afer took the paper, which contained a few crabbed words, as follows:— ‘I arrived last night, and the two females you know of are safely lodged in the house of one Tucca, under the Hill of Mars, a very safe place.’ There was no signature, but Afer needed none to tell him from whom the missive came. ‘It is very suggestive,’ said he, with an inscrutable countenance; ‘but, for the rest, I am still too much in the dark to say more.’ ‘What then if I tell you that these damsels came from Rome—who would you say they were, or rather she—for one, as I apprehend, is only a slave?’ ‘Rome is large and its females many,’ said Afer; ‘I would as lieve begin to count the stones on the Marina.’ ‘Who but our lovely entertainer on many a pleasant afternoon—who but the queenly Plautia.’ ‘What! Plautia here, and why?’ cried the knight, with a start of surprise which Roscius might have envied. ‘Ah, Prefect, what does this mean?’ Afer smiled and looked at the handsome Prefect with a sly askant look. ‘Faith, I know not—not I,’ answered Sejanus. ‘Um!’ said his follower. There was something in the manner of this ejaculation which proved too much for the other’s attempted gravity, and he burst out into a laugh. ‘You would seem to insinuate something, my dear Titus,’ he remarked; ‘and yet it is quite true, incredible as it may appear, that our lovely and wilful dame has thought fit to visit Capreae entirely in obedience to her own whim.’ ‘Most strange!’ rejoined Afer pithily. ‘Most true!’ ‘There must be a strong reason for such a dainty, exquisite, proud, city‐ bred lady to come hither—do you not think so?’ ‘Whether there be a strong inducement, or merely a woman’s curiosity I am equally unaware.’ ‘Such privations, such hardships, such fatigues, such inconveniences for a female to undergo, who has never known even the hardness of a wrinkle in her bed of down. There is never a man in Rome who would not give five years of his life to be able to boast of this feat.’ ‘Pooh, pooh, man! you are fantastical this morning.’ ‘If I am as near the truth, as it seems to me I am, it matters not what name you put upon it.’ ‘Tush!’ ‘Your approaching marriage makes her desperate. It is as clear as the daylight.’ ‘Pooh, pooh, this is nonsense!’ ‘The lady is proud; but we ever thought we could detect the signs of feeling for you, in spite of her haughty bearing.’ ‘Have done, man—you grow silly.’ ‘What must be the power which can so reduce such pride and disdain to such lapdog humility!’ ‘Are you so mad as to imagine that she has ventured hither on my account?’ ‘I have said.’ ‘Psaw!’