Not until they saw Brinnaria move off in charge of the staff-officer did the audience let loose their pent-up feelings. The place pulsated with a roar like that of a great waterfall in a deep gorge, salvo after salvo of cheers swelling and merging. The deep boom of their applause pursued Brinnaria and made her cower. The people would never forget her now. They were in ecstasy. She was their darling. CHAPTER VII - AUDIENCE ON the drive homeward from that unforgettable gladiatorial exhibition Manlia and Gargilia shared the second state coach: in the first sat Brinnaria by Causidiena. “My child,” Causidiena queried, “what ever made you do it?” “I don’t know,” Brinnaria replied. “I did it before I thought.” “Well!” said her elder philosophically. “It is done now and cannot be helped. But please try to remember that a Vestal is expected to control herself at all times, never to act without forethought, to reflect long before she acts, to do nothing unusual, to be very sure in each instance that what she is about to do is wholly becoming to a Vestal.” “I’ll keep on trying,” Brinnaria replied mutinously, “but I was not constructed to be a Vestal. I always knew it; I know it now and I am afraid I’ll continue my blundering through the conventions. I’m built that way.” She had to endure a second long lecture from Faltonius Bambilio. She listened submissively enough, but vouchsafed not one word of self-defence, rejoinder or comment; and, when urged to speak, she was obstinately silent. “My daughter,” Faltonius droned at her, “remember that, since your entrance into the order of Vestals, I stand to you in the relation of parent to his own child. You should confide in me as in your spiritual father.” “I should do nothing of the kind,” Brinnaria refuted him. “I know the statutes of the order better than that. Up to the days of the Divine Augustus, the Pontifex Maximus inhabited the house next to the house of the Vestals and stood in the closest relation of fatherhood towards them. But since he went to live on the Palatine and made us a present of his house we have occupied all this Atrium which was built in the place of the two houses. Since then no one has been in the same intimate relation of control over us. The Emperors have always held the office of Pontifex Maximus and as such each Emperor has been the spiritual father of the Vestals. The Emperor is my spiritual father and you are not.” “Your self-opinionated talk does you little credit,” Faltonius retorted. “Since you know so much you must know also that for many years each Emperor has designated some priest as Pontifex of Vesta to be his deputy and to stand in the closest relation of parental oversight towards the members of your consecrated order; I am that deputy.”