the wrenching of her mind from the placid details of linen chests and store-rooms to the disasters in Caesar’s household.  Augustus, without warning, at the opening of what promised to be a brilliant social season, had risen in terrible wrath; and Julia, his granddaughter, her lover, Decimus Junius Silanus, and, it was rumoured, several other prominent men had been given the choice of accepting banishment or submitting to a public prosecution.  There was really no choice for them.  The courts would condemn relentlessly, and the only way to save even life was to leave Rome.

“But the brutal suddenness of it!” Fabia exclaimed.  “It seems more tragic, somehow, than her mother’s punishment.  Isn’t everybody aghast?  And do you think she has deserved it?” Rufus looked grave and troubled.  “It is not easy to know what one does think,” he said.  “There has been a great deal of boasting about our prosperity, our victories abroad and our lustre at home.  But some of us who have been watching closely have wondered how long this would last.  The Empire has been created at a great cost and cannot be preserved at a lesser price.  Insurrections have to be put down in the provinces, harmony and efficiency have to be maintained in the capital.  It takes harsh courage, inflexible morals to do all that.  Julia and with her Roman society have defied Caesar’s desires, just as her mother and her set defied them ten years ago.  Imagine the grief and despair of our old Emperor!  He must do something savage, drastic, irrevocable, to save his state.  My heart breaks for him, and yet I cannot help pitying our imperial lady.  With her light grace, her audacious humour, among our stern old standards, she has often made me think of a Dryad moving with rosy feet and gleaming shoulders in a black forest.  All our family, Fabia, have been like the trees.  But perhaps Rome needs the Dryads too.  What is moral truth?” Fabia smiled suddenly.  “Ovid would say it is beauty,” she said.  “That is an old dispute between us.”  Her face fell again.  “He will be deeply distressed by this calamity.  Julia has been very gracious to him and he admires her even more than he did her mother.”

“When is he coming home?” Rufus asked.  “I didn’t expect him until the day before the Ides,” Fabia answered, “but I think now he may come earlier.  Caesar sent this morning to inquire where he was, and perhaps some honour is going to be offered that will bring him back immediately—­a reading at the Palace, perhaps, or—­but, uncle,” she exclaimed, “what is the matter?  You have turned so white.  You are sick.”  She came near him with tender, anxious hands, and he gathered them into his thin, old ones and drew her to him.  “No, dear heart,” he said.  “I am not sick.  For a moment fear outwitted me, a Fabian.  You must promise me not to be afraid, whatever happens.  Is it cruel to warn you of what may never come to you?  But our days are troubled.  Jove’s thunderstorm has broken upon us.  Your husband is among the lofty.  It is only the obscure who are sure of escaping the lightning.  Send for me, if you need me.  Remember whose blood is in you.  I must go—­there may yet be time.”  He kissed her forehead hurriedly and was gone.