"The tribune hastily brought up the column and Tiberius and Caligula were helped to their feet. The lad withdrew to the roadside, but Caligula turned upon the soldiers and flung camp-jokes at them, so broad, so bold, so rough, that, at first chuckling, then roaring, the whole cohort burst into a great shout in honor of their favorite. "Meanwhile, Eutychus had permitted his horses by bad management to become unruly. Agrippa seized the lines away from him and lashed him across the shoulders once or twice, to the great rage of the charioteer. I had in the meanwhile to alight and quiet the animals. Agrippa then drove toward Tiberius to offer him the hospitality of his chariot, while the slaves were pursuing the runaways. The boy saw him coming, understood the prince's intent and handed his cloak to a slave preparatory to mounting Agrippa's car, when the cohort began to cheer Caligula. "What did Agrippa, then, but wheel his horses, drive over to the soldiers' favorite and take him into the car!" "What! Did that thing openly?" "Deliberately! The boy paled, flushed, and whirling about, stalked back inside of the walls, before I could invent an excuse to cover Agrippa's slight. And after him rushed a crowd of senators and aediles--his umbrae--to feed his hate of the Herod!" "What did Agrippa, then?" Junia asked after a dismayed silence. "He was long gone up the road to Tusculum with Caligula by that time." "It is not hard to guess how he lost Fortune before," Junia declared. "He plays at legerdemain with Caesar's favor," Marsyas said, annoyed at his own narrative. "Tiberius, most solemnly commended the boy Tiberius to Agrippa's care and companionship. Caesar will hear of this!" "Inevitably! Tale-bearing is a fine art in Rome and Tiberius is its patron. And thus he conducts himself in the face of Cypros' peril, who gave herself in hostage for him that he might succeed!" "Cypros' peril!" Marsyas repeated, with startled eyes. "Of Flaccus!" Marsyas' astonishment was not pleasant. "Why of Flaccus?" he asked. "What! Hath Agrippa kept his counsel, thus long? Dost thou not know that Flaccus hath an eye to the timid Cypros and Agrippa, discovering it, all but killed Flaccus in a passage back of the temple, on the night of the Dance of Flora?" Marsyas looked at her steadily. "How much dost thou know of this thing?" he demanded. "Can I know too much of it?" she asked plaintively. "No!" he answered penitently. "Then I know all of it, cause, process and result," she declared. "Tell it me, then!"