the objection had been removed by Virgilia's own fault.

She arrayed herself to receive the Senator with as much care as if she
were going to be a guest at Caesar's table. This marriage of
Virgilia's would bring her and her husband into the first rank of
society, a thing for which her soul had longed for many a year. A
lawyer, though a man highly honored and received at the palace, was
nevertheless, considered of medium rank. The mother of a Senator took
a different position. And all this had been caused merely by a chance
meeting with Adrian Soderus, when he had been charmed by Virgilia's
lovely face. Well, she was lovely, Claudia acknowledged, in the
intervals of scolding her waiting-woman because she did not arrange
the curls on her forehead to her satisfaction; no lovelier could be
found in the whole province, even the emperor himself had smiled upon
her one day, when she had gone with her father and mother to the
palace. Emperor's smiles, however, had little value, whereas the
Senator's riches were practical.

Claudia greeted the ponderous guest with deepest courtesies, and soon
she and the lawyer, with the notary, a little dried-up man who took
snuff freely from a golden, bejeweled box, and sneezed so violently
thereafter that Virgilia, sitting alone in her room, heard him and
laughed outright, had arranged the whole affair. Virgilia was only a
child and did not dream that in another part of the house, she was
being discussed as if she were a package of merchandise, bargained
over as coolly as though the affair concerned the sale of a slave.

This was no unusual thing in ancient Rome. A girl was her father's
property, to be disposed of as he saw fit and to his advantage.
Neither Aurelius nor Claudia intended to be cruel to Virgilia. It was