"You f-f-fool!" Flexinna declared.
"All members of our clan keep their word," said Brinnaria proudly. "We do not ask whether it is advantageous to keep our word or pleasant; when we have pa.s.sed our word we keep it. I"ve given my word and there"s nothing to do but to wait for Almo and Daddy and hope that both, or at least a message from Daddy will get here before Faltonius."
"There is something else you might do," Flexinna suggested. "You might easily arrange to be ineligible before Bambilio comes for you."
"I shall," spoke the matter-of-fact Brinnaria. "The moment Daddy and Almo come, I"ll be Alma"s wife in less time than it takes to tell it and will be able to snap my fingers at Bambilio."
"Suppose he comes before your father," Flexinna suggested.
"I"d be a Vestal and all hope gone," said Brinnaria,
"I mean," said Flexinna, "suppose Almo comes before your father."
"I"ve thought of that," Brinnaria admitted. "But I"d hate to break the record of which our family is so proud. None of our women ever were so much as accused of any misbehavior before marriage."
"I"ve no p-p-patience with you," Flexinna raged. "You"ll throw away your life for a mere scruple. You risk being made a Vestal every moment.
Faltonius may be on the way here now. If I were in your place I"d make sure. I"d not wait for Almo. Any lad would do for me. You c-c-could make sure, if you had sense. Almo would forgive you and marry you anyway.
Your father would forgive you; he"d never approve, I know."
"Not he!" Brinnaria proclaimed, "and he"ll never have any such dishonor to forgive. No man of our clan ever had reason to be ashamed of his daughter or of his sister. I"ll not be the first to disgrace the clan.
If Faltonius comes he"ll find me as eligible as the hour I was born, unless Daddy and Almo come in time for me to be married first."
"At least," Flexinna persisted, "you might say no when he asks you. That would stall the whole ceremony and give you t-t-time."
"Do you suppose," Brinnaria sneered, "that I haven"t thought of that?
I"m tempted, of course. But that would be to advertise myself a disgrace to the Pontifex during a solemn interrogatory."
"At least," Flexinna pleaded, "you might say you are over age. You look sixteen to anybody, and no one would imagine you are under fourteen. You could halt the proceedings, at least, and gain t-t-time."
"Faltonius has the lists," said Brinnaria wearily, "with all the birthdays sworn to by both parents for every girl on them and attested by four excellent witnesses, besides. He"d know I was lying and it would do me no good."
Flexinna changed the subject.
But when the next day dawned and neither Brinnarius nor Almo appeared, she returned to the attack. Brinnaria was very pale, very tense, but obdurate. She controlled herself, did not forget, did not express her feelings, but she posted a slave at each street corner, right and left of the house-door, and had them look out for what she hoped and what she feared.
Dastor brought word that the Pontifex and his retinue were approaching; three litters, each with eight bearers, preceded by the lictor of the Chief Vestal.
Brinnaria, pale and tense, did her best to look collected and controlled. She succeeded well, heard calmly the announcement of her august visitors, ordered them shown into the atrium, and received them with proper dignity. Her self-possession did not desert her when she recognized in the train of the Pontifex her rejected suitor Calvaster, sly, malignant and with an air of suppressed elation.
Faltonius Bambilio, the Pontifex of Vesta, was a pursy, pudgy, pompous old man, immensely self-important, almost ridiculous in his fussiness, but clothed with a certain impressiveness by the mere fact of his religious office. He gazed about him, stared at Brinnaria, hemmed and hawed and threw himself into poses intended to be stately.
With him was Causidiena, now Chief Vestal, a tall, spare woman of about forty-five, her austere face kindly and rea.s.suring, her dark hair barely showing under her official head-dress, a statuesque figure in her white robes of office.
"My daughter," spoke Faltonius to Brinnaria, "Rome has but five Vestals.
I have come to take you into the vacant place. You have been chosen, as best suited to this high dignity, from among those whose names were on the lists of those fit for the office. Was it proper that your name should be on the lists?"
"I believe so," spoke Brinnaria, weakly, almost in a whisper.
"Are you fit to be taken as a Vestal, my daughter?"
"I believe so," came the answer.
"Have you any blemish or defect of body, any impediment of speech, any difficulty of hearing?"
Brinnaria"s awe was wearing off, and the irritating pomposity of Faltonius was producing its usual effect of arousing antagonism, as it generally did in those he talked to. Brinnaria felt all her wild self surge up in her.
"I"m sound as a two-year-old racing filly," she replied. "I"m clean as fresh curd; I hear you perfectly and you can hear me perfectly."
Bambilio bristled like a bantam rooster.
"That is not the way for a Vestal to speak," he rebuked.
"I"m not a Vestal yet," Brinnaria retorted, "and that was my answer to those questions. If you don"t like it I don"t care a shred of bran."
"Come! come!" fussed Bambilio, "answer the interrogatories properly."
"I have and I shall," Brinnaria maintained mutinously.
"Are you fit in mind and in faculties to be a Vestal?" he continued.
"Fit to be Flaminica or Empress," Brinnaria responded.
"Are you pure?" came the next query.
"As when I was born," said Brinnaria emphatically.
"What is your age?" the Pontifex queried his victim.
"I"ll be ten on the Ides of next September," quoth his victim.
"Are your parents both alive?" he asked.
"They were the last time I heard of them," spoke Brinnaria flippantly.
"When was that?" he insisted.
"This is the twelfth day since they left Rome," said Brinnaria, "and I"ve not heard from them since they sent a messenger back from the ninth milestone on the road to Tibur."
Faltonius was irritating her more and more, and she added:
"They may both be dead by this time, for all I know."
"This will not do," spoke Faltonius. "We must be sure that they are both alive."
"Find out," snapped Brinnaria.
Up spoke young Calvaster, his pasty face alight with a sort of malicious glee.