was alone, she would open a little casket, of which no other had the
key, and touch the ivory-carved hilt of a small damascened knife. The
blade was very sharp; and there was a sticky gum all along the
edge,--deadly poison; only a very slight scratch put one beyond aid of
physician.

The bitterest cup of all was the attitude she felt forced to assume
toward Lucius Ahenobarbus. There were limits of familiarity and
simulated affection beyond which she could not drive herself to go.
Lucius was with her at all hours and in all places. The more she saw
of him the more she abhorred his effeminate sensuality and lack of
almost every quality that made life worth the living. But she
must--she must learn the plot against Drusus, and precisely how and
when the trap was to be sprung. And in a measure, at least so far as
Lucius was concerned, she succeeded. By continually and openly
reviling Quintus, by professing to doubt the legality of a marriage
contracted against the terms of her father's will, by all but
expressing the wish that her late lover were out of harm's way, she
won her point. In a fit of half-drunken confidence Ahenobarbus assured
her that she would not be troubled by Drusus for long; that he would
soon be unable to annoy her. And then came a great disappointment.
When Cornelia asked--and how much the request cost her, only she
herself knew--to be let into the plot, Lucius owned that he had left
the details in the hands of Pratinas, and did not himself know just
how or when the blow was to fall. In Pratinas--whom Cornelia met very
seldom--she met with a sphinx, ever smiling, ever gracious, but who,
as if regretting the burst of confidence he had allowed Valeria, kept
himself closed to the insinuations and half-questions of every one
else. The truth was, the lanista Dumnorix was unwilling to do his part
of the business until the festival at Anagnia brought him and his band