“What troubles me,” said Brinnaria, “is the dread that my wild and tomboyish behavior may be as displeasing to the Goddess as coquettishness or wantonness. I am in terror for fear my ministrations may be unpleasant to her, may be sacrilegious, may not only fail to win her blessing upon Rome but may draw down her curse upon all of us. I never thought of that until I stood there all alone out in the arena, astraddle of that beautiful boy whom I just had to save, feeling all of a sudden horribly naked in my one thin, clinging undergarment, with two hundred thousand eyes staring at me. It came over me with a rush that I was not only never going to be fit for a Vestal but that I wasn’t fit for a Vestal and I hadn’t been fit for a Vestal; that I not only was going to do harm, not only was doing harm, but had done harm. If the Parthians are devastating the frontier along the Euphrates and the Marcommani and the Quadi are storming the outposts along the Danube and the Rhine, perhaps that is because my presence in the Atrium is an offence in the eyes of Vesta, my prayers an affront to my Goddess, my care of her altar-fire an insult to her. I tremble to think of it. And I cannot get it out of my head. I wake up in the dark and think of it and it keeps me awake, sometimes, longer than I ever lay awake in the dark in my life. It scares me. I am a Vestal to bring prosperity and glory to the Empire, to pray prayers that will surely be answered. Suppose the Goddess is deaf to my prayers because I am unworthy to pray to her? Suppose that my prayers infuriate her because I am vile in her sight? Suppose I am causing disaster to the Empire? I keep thinking all that. Do you wonder that I think of suicide, of hanging myself, like the two Oculatas?” “My child!” Aurelius cut in. “You have not done anything that justifies your comparing yourself to the Oculata sisters.” “We’ll come back to that later,” Brinnaria replied. “Just now let us stick to the point. Do you think my fears justified or not?” “Decidedly not,” the Emperor rejoined, without an instant’s hesitation, “and I speak not as a soft-hearted parent who sees the soul of his own daughter looking at him out of the eyes of every little girl whose heart troubles her, I speak as the guardian of the interests of the Empire, as the warder of the destinies of Rome. “Your misbehavior has certainly been grave, I admit; and, if done maliciously, would entail all the harm you imagine. But the Goddess can see not only your actions but your thoughts. Your scruples do you high credit. I will not say you are as pleasing to the Goddess as would be a grave and sedate ministrant, but I do solemnly decide and declare that you need have no further dread of any past, present or future harm to the Empire or to Rome from your past behavior, if you honestly try to err no more. This is my official decision. Be at peace in your heart.” Brinnaria drew a deep breath.