Her reception at the Palace made her feel even more so. The magnificence of the courtyard in which her coach came to a standstill, the ceremonial of turning out the guard in her honor, the formality with which she was conducted from corridor to corridor and from hail to hail, the immensity and gorgeousness of the vast audience hall in which she was finally left alone with the Emperor; all these did not so much overwhelm her as exalt her. She felt herself indeed a princess. The Emperor greeted Brinnaria kindly, was as sympathetic as possible and put her at her ease at once. He soothed her, made her seat herself comfortably and said: “Don’t worry about what you have done. You are certainly the most startling Vestal since Gegania, but you have really done nothing actually wrong. So do not agitate yourself about what cannot be altered. The question which concerns me is, what will you do next?” “I think,” said Brinnaria, “that the next thing I shall do will be to procure a good strong rope and hang myself.” “My child,” the shocked Emperor exclaimed, “you really should not speak so flippantly of so dreadful an idea!” “I’m not a particle flippant this time,” Brinnaria declared. “I know I am often flippant, but not now, not a bit. I am just as serious as life and death. I have thought of nothing but suicide since Trebellius conducted me back to my seat. I can’t get the idea out of my head and that is why I have come to you.” “Tell me all about it from the beginning,” the Emperor said, comfortingly. “What put the notion into your head?” “In the beginning,” said Brinnaria, “you know that I didn’t want to be a Vestal.” “Yes, I know,” he assured her. “Well,” she went on, “now I am a Vestal and must serve out my thirty years, I’m really trying to do my best to be all I ought to be. I really am. I’ve tried hard to be sedate and grave and collected and reticent and slow-spoken, and all the rest of it. And I think I haven’t done badly most of the time. But after all, I’m myself and I can’t be changed. Every once in a while myself boils up in me under the scum of convention I’ve spread on top of the cauldron, so to speak. I don’t mean to let go and be natural and spontaneous. I’ve done the awful thing before I know I’m going to do it. I didn’t mean to pour the pork gravy over old Gubba’s head; but she looked so funny I just did it without knowing what I was going to do. I didn’t mean to throw Manlia’s pet monkey out of the window on to Moccilo’s head. But her shock of red curls looked to be just the place on which to drop little Dito, and I dropped Dito before I thought. It’s just the same way about all the other dreadful things I do. I don’t mean to do them, but I do do them.” “Don’t worry,” the Emperor said, “you’ll outgrow all that.” “I trust I may,” Brinnaria sighed, “but how about the harm I’m doing as I go along?” “You haven’t done any harm, not any harm that matters,” the Emperor soothed her.