“Well,” said Pratinas, laughing, for he was a dearly loved favourite of all these gilded youth, “I will see!  And now Gabinius is inviting Calatinus also, and we are dispersing for the morning.”

“Alas,” groaned Ahenobarbus, “I must go to the Forum to plead with that wretch Phormio, the broker, to arrange a new loan.”

“And I to the Forum, also,” added Calatinus, coming up, “to continue this pest of a canvass for votes.”

The clients fell into line behind Calatinus like a file of soldiers, but before Pratinas could start away with the other friends, a slave-boy came running out from the inner house, to say that “the Lady Valeria would be glad of his company in her boudoir.”  The Greek bowed his farewells, then followed the boy back through the court of the peristylium.[35]

  [35] An inner private court back of the atrium.

III

The dressing room occupied by Valeria—­once wife of Sextus Drusus and now living with Calatinus as her third husband in about four years—­was fitted up with every luxury which money, and a taste which carried refinement to an extreme point, could accomplish.  The walls were bright with splendid mythological scenes by really good artists; the furniture itself was plated with silver; the rugs were magnificent.  The mistress of this palatial abode was sitting in a low easy-chair, holding before her a fairly large silver mirror.  She wore a loose gown of silken texture, edged to an ostentatious extent with purple.  Around her hovered Arsinoe and Semiramis, two handsome Greek slave-girls, who were far better looking than their owner, inasmuch as their complexions had never been ruined by paints and ointments.  They were expert hairdressers, and Valeria had paid twenty-five thousand sesterces for each of them, on the strength of their proficiency in that art, and because they were said to speak with a pure Attic Greek accent.  At the moment they were busy stripping off from the lady’s face a thick layer of dried enamel that had been put on the night before.

Had Valeria been willing, she might have feared no comparison with her maids; for from a merely sensuous standpoint, she would have been reckoned very beautiful.  She had by nature large brown eyes, luxuriant brown hair, and what had been a clear brunette skin, and well-rounded and regular features.  But her lips were curled in hard, haughty lines, her long eyelashes drooped as though she took little interest in life; and, worse than all, to satisfy the demands of fashion, she had bleached her hair to a German blonde, by a process ineffective and injurious.  The lady was just fuming to herself over a gray hair Arsinoe had discovered, and Arsinoe went around in evident fear lest Valeria should vent her vexation on her innocent ministers.