The Temple and the Atrium of Vesta made up an institution in which death was entirely disregarded. As no seriously ill Vestal was ever allowed to remain within the limits of the Atrium, but, as soon as alarming symptoms appeared, was removed from the Atrium and put in charge of relations or friends, so also the body of a dead Vestal was always turned over to the care of her family or connections. Though the Vestals, alone among Romans, possessed the privilege of being buried inside the walls of Rome, though their funerals were magnificent public processions, participated in by all the functionaries of the state and lavishly provided at the public expense, yet the death itself was held to be a concern of the family of the dead Vestal, not of her surviving colleagues. The Vestals might mourn but the Atrium was never in mourning. Its routine went on as if nothing had happened; no sign of grief was displayed or even permitted; visitors were received as usual. Among the first visitors to the Atrium on the morning after Almo’s fight and Meffia’s death was, naturally, Flexinna. At the first word Brinnaria cut her short. “I don’t want to hear his name,” she declared. “I’m done with him forever. I don’t love him any longer; I don’t care for him, even; I hate him. It does not concern me whether he recovers or not. I’d rather he wouldn’t recover. The best thing for both of us would be for him to die anyhow. I wish he were dead; I wish one of those heavy men had killed him.” “B-B-Brinnaria!” Flexinna remonstrated, “you t-t-talk like a raving maniac! You look like a F-F-Fury!” “I’m furious enough!” Brinnaria snarled, “and I’ve plenty of good cause for being angry. Was ever woman on earth put in a position so invidious, so embarrassing? Everybody knew of my rescue of the retiarius, thousands had seen me rescue him. Everybody knew of my involvement with Almo before I was taken for a Vestal, of our love for each other, of my expressed intention to marry him at the end of my service. Everybody recognized Almo. “And there I was with the one man on earth in the jaws of death before my eyes and I with the power to save him if I chose and a hundred thousand people watching me to see what I would do. And because I had once before rescued a man in that same situation everybody expected me to do something unusual and spectacular to save Almo. “If it had been any other man it would have been the most natural thing in the world for me to give the signal for mercy and nobody would have thought anything of it. But, because the man before me was the man I had expressed my intention of marrying at the end of my service, therefore, if I had tried to save him, that would be taken as a confession of my being actuated by the sort of interest which no Vestal has a right to feel for any man. “A delightful situation to be placed in!