Earlier in the conflict with her uncle she had exulted in the idea that suicide was always in her power; now she trembled at the thought of death, at the thought of everything contained in the unlovely future.

She did not want to die, to flicker out in nothingness, never to smile and never to laugh again.

Why should she not be happy--rightly happy?
Was she not a Cornelian, a Claudian, born to a position that a princess might enjoy?
Was not wealth hers, and a fair degree of wit and a handsome face?
Why then should she, the patrician maiden, eat her heart out, while close at hand Artemisia, poor little foundling Greek, was sleeping as sweetly as though people never grieved nor sorrows tore the soul?
Cornelia was almost angry with Artemisia for being thus oblivious to and shielded from calamity.

So hot in fact did her indignation become against the innocent girl, that Cornelia herself began to smile at her own passion.

And there was one thought very comforting to her pride.
"Artemisia is only an uneducated slave, or little better than a slave; if she were in my station she would be just as unhappy.