While Vergilius, going slowly, was thinking of these things, Vanity, the only real goddess who, in Rome, managed the great theatre of fashion, had her stage set for a love scene.

It was to occur in the triclinium, or great banquet-hall, of a palace--that of the Lady Lucia.
There were portrait-masks and mural paintings on either wall; ancestral statues of white marble stood in a row against the red wall; there were seats and divans of ebony enriched by cunning hands; lamp-holders of wrought metal standing high as a man's head, and immense violet rugs on the floor.

The heroine wore a white robe banded low with purple, and her jewelled hair was in fillets of gold.

There was always a pretty artfulness in the match-making of a patrician beauty and her mother.
Indeed, life had grown far from elemental emotions.
"Now, when he enters," said the girl, turning to the Lady Lucia, "I shall bring him here at once and sit down by this heap of cushions, and then--Oh, god of my heart! What shall I do with that big man--what shall I say to him ?" "My dear, he will speak, and then you will know what to say," said the matron.

"Only do not let him know that you love him--at least, not for a time yet." "Too late; I fear he knows it now--the wretch!" said Arria, rubbing her cheeks to make them glow.
"But mind you hold him off, and do not let him caress you for an hour at least.