“But fortunately it was not sacrilegious. The person of the Pontifex of Vesta is not sacrosanct and a blow inflicted on him is not to be rated as impious. Your act called for no expiation, personal or official. It did not desecrate him, or you, nor the place where it occurred. “Besides, I cannot resist admitting to you,”--and the Emperor smiled an unmistakable smile--“that this particular Pontiff of Vesta is farther from being sacrosanct than any of his predecessors. As far as I can learn, Faltonius is a worthy man, pious and scrupulous. But he is absurdly unfitted for his office in appearance and in manner. The self-importance he assumes, the pomposity with which he performs his duties, would be too great even for an Emperor. He irritates all of us. All of us have wished, secretly or openly, many, many times, that Bambilio would be soundly thrashed. He has been. You did it. The story was too good to keep. It has not, of course, been allowed to leak out, and become common property. But it is known to all the Flamens, Augurs and Pontiffs. “I need not describe to you the feelings of my colleagues, nor my own. To hint them is perhaps too much; to particularize them would be unseemly. I may say, however, that just as street-boys acclaim you by shouting: “‘That’s the girl that saved the dog;’ just as all over the Empire you are talked of as the lady who rescued the retiarius; so at any festival or ceremonial in which the Vestals take part, many a dignitary is likely to nudge his neighbor, indicate you and whisper: “‘That’s the priestess who walloped Bambilio!’ You are not infamous, you are famous. “As for myself I am the more inclined to feel indulgent towards you because I understand how you felt. You were boiling with rage at being struck by any one, as any noble girl would be. Yet you would have controlled your fury but for the fact that you knew that you yourself had done nothing to deserve chastisement, that you were suffering for another’s fault.” “What!” cried Brinnaria. “Oh, yes,” Aurelius continued, easily. “Causidiena and I are quite agreed on that point. Neither she nor I have questioned Meffia, and we do not mean to; partly because we are sure enough, without any admission from her; partly because the matter is best left as it is, without any further notice. But, with the exception of Meffia, it is quite certain that, from the Vestals themselves down to the last slave-girl, every resident of the Atrium believes that not you but Meffia let the fire go out, and that you took the blame due her. And we can all conjecture your motives, as we all applaud them. “Meffia might never have survived a scourging, might have been ailing for months. Rome wants no sick Vestals nor dead Vestals. Causidiena is grateful to you, all the Atrium is grateful, I am grateful.”