And as he finished speaking, he turned aside with a haughty gesture of farewell; and wrapping his toga closely about his tall person, stalked away slowly in the direction neither of the capitol nor of the consul’s house; turning his head neither to the right hand nor to the left; and taking no more notice of the person to whom he had been speaking, than if he had not known him to be there, and gazing toward him half-bewildered in anxiety and wonder! "Wonderful! by the Gods!" he said at last. "Truly he is a wonderful man, and wise withal! I fain would know if all that be true, which they say of him—his bitterness, his impiety, his blood-thirstiness! By Hercules! he speaks well! and it is _true_ likewise. Yea! true it is, that we, patricians, and free, as we style ourselves, may not speak any thing, or act, against our order; no! nor indulge our private pleasures, for fear of the proud censors! Is this, then, freedom? True, we are lords abroad; our fleets, our hosts, everywhere victorious; and not one land, wherein the eagle has unfurled her pinion, but bows before the majesty of Rome—but yet—is it, is it, indeed, true, that we are but slaves, sovereign slaves, at home?" The whole tenor of the young man’s thoughts was altered by the few words, let fall for that very purpose by the arch traitor. Ever espying whom he might attach to his party by operating on his passions, his prejudices, his weakness, or his pride; a most sagacious judge of human nature, reading the character of every man as it were in a written book, Cataline had long before remarked young Arvina. He had noted several points of his mental constitution, which he considered liable to receive such impressions as he would—his proneness to defer to the thoughts of others, his want of energetic resolution, and not least his generous indignation against every thing that savored of cruelty or oppression. He had resolved to operate on these, whenever he might find occasion; and should he meet success in his first efforts, to stimulate his passions, minister to his voluptuous pleasures, corrupt his heart, and make him in the end, body and soul, his own.