“One thing more, my dear Caius--Quintus Claudius too must know how strongly I feel on this point. After dinner bring him, as if by chance, into my study....” “Trust to me.” “Very good; and now for a few hours I will try to banish these memories from my soul. As you see me, Caius, you may think it a miracle that I am not choked by the insult! And not a soul that could sympathize with me! Nerva, my old friend, was absent. Even Trajan was so far off as Antium[225]....” “And Caius Aurelius was too young and too much a stranger?” said the Batavian laughing. “Yes, I must confess that it was so. From the first, it is true, I saw you to be an admirable youth, and I thank my friend at Gades, who sent you with letters of introduction to me; but I could not guess how early ripe and truly noble your whole nature was, how fervent your patriotism and how unconquerable your pride.--But in all truth, Aurelius, from this day forth--here comes Quintus and his sisters; we part for the present, but do not forget!” His face, which had brightened somewhat as he spoke, fell again to the expression of grave, almost sinister determination, which characterized his strongly-marked features. He crossed the atrium to the entrance where the young people, surrounded by their guests, were chatting gaily. Cinna pressed the hand of his niece’s lover--kindly, but yet with a certain reserve--and addressed a few half-jesting words to the girls; but when Claudia attempted to offer such apology as best she might for her mother’s absence, he turned away as if he did not hear. At this moment the noble figure of an old man appeared in the doorway; with a gleaming white toga over his shoulders and flowing snowy locks, his towering height gave him a majestic presence. “Cocceius Nerva,” whispered the Batavian to Herodianus, who came up to him to ask. “By Castor!” said the freedman, “but if I had met this man on arriving here, I should have said that he and no other must be the ruler of the world.” “Remember, we are in Rome, and you will do well to keep such ideas to yourself.” Cornelius Cinna led the illustrious senator to a handsome marble seat covered with carpets, and a circle of reverent friends formed round him at once. “By all the gods,” muttered Herodianus, “may I perish if that marble seat does not look for all the world like a throne; and they stand round him like the guard round Caesar.--And now, as he raises his right hand! If he were but thirty years younger, he would be like that image of Zeus we bought a while since in Gades; he only lacks the thunderbolt.” “Silence!” repeated Aurelius angrily. “You have had no wine yet to-day--what will you not say when you have played your part at dinner, if you are as thirsty as usual?” “I will not say another word,” replied the freedman.