Virgilia was human.
"For a feast, your father said," replied the slave, leaving Virgilia
in her splendor, sitting in the fast-darkening room, alone.
The Senator Adrian Soderus, indeed, lost no time. He arrived at the
lawyer's house just at the hour of sundown, when the heavy clouds were
scattering and the sun sent shafts of golden light to turn the mists
overhanging the towers and pinnacles of Rome's palaces and temples
into filmy veils. It looked like a wraith-city, hung with yellow
gauze.
The chair stopped at the door and the noted man alighted with much
difficulty, for he was very stout from too much indulgence in the good
things of the world, and half-crippled with rheumatism, besides. It
took two strong slaves to lift him out and support him until he sank,
with a groan, on the largest and strongest seat possessed by Aurelius
Lucanus.
Claudia was given new life by the prospect of her daughter's marriage
to one of the wealthiest men in Rome, a thing which she had tried to
bring to pass some months before, but failed because of her husband's
opposition.
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