Her invitations had been hurried out, and now in her private sitting
room, known as the Venus Room from its choicest ornament, a
life-sized statue of Venus the Plunderer, she was looking over the
answers which had been sorted for her by her secretary. The Greek,
waiting for further orders, looked at her with admiring, if
disillusioned, eyes. Large and robust, her magnificent figure could
display no ungraceful lines as she sat on the low carved chair in
front of a curtain of golden Chinese silk. Her dress was of a strange
sea-green and emeralds shone in her ears and her heavy, black hair.
An orange-coloured cat with gleaming, yellow eyes curved its tail
across her feet. Above her right shoulder hung a silver cage
containing a little bird which chirped and twittered in silly
ignorance of its mistress's mood. Anger disfigured her beautiful
mouth and eyes. The list of regrets stretched out to sinister length
and included such pillars of society as Brutus and Sempronia, Bibulus
and Portia. A cynical smile relieved Clodia's sullen lips. Did these
braggarts imagine her blind to the fact that if lively Sempronia and
stupid Bibulus could conveniently die, Brutus and Portia, who were
wiping her off their visiting lists because her feet had strayed
beyond the marriage paddock, would make short work of their mourning?

Aurelia's declination she had expected. Her inordinate pride in
being Caesar's mother had not modified her arrogant, old-time
severity toward the freedom of modern life. But that Calpurnia should
plead her husband's absence as an excuse was ominous. Everyone knew
that he dictated her social relations. Terentia had been implacable
since that amusing winter when Clodia had spread a net for Cicero.
For her own sex Clodia had the hawk's contempt for sparrows, but if
Caesar as well as Cicero were to withdraw from her arena, she might