Chapter 2

Those days it was near twelve o'clock by the great dial of history.
One day, about mid-afternoon, the old capital lay glowing in the
sunlight. Its hills were white with marble and green with gardens, and
traced and spotted and flecked with gold; its thoroughfares were bright
with color--white, purple, yellow, scarlet--like a field of roses and
amarantus.

The fashionable day had begun; knight and lady were now making and
receiving visits.

Five litters and some forty slaves, who bore and followed them, were
waiting in the court of the palace of the Lady Lucia. Beyond the walls
of white marble a noble company was gathered that summer day. There
were the hostess and her daughter; three young noblemen, the purple
stripes on each angusticlave telling of knightly rank; a Jewish prince
in purple and gold; an old philosopher, and a poet who had been reading
love lines. It was the age of pagan chivalry, and one might imperil
his future with poor wit or a faulty epigram. Those older men had long
held the floor, and their hostess, seeking to rally the young knights,
challenged their skill in courtly compliment.

"O men, who have forgotten the love of women these days, look at her!"

So spoke the Lady Lucia--she that was widow of the Praefect Publius,
who fell with half his cohort in the desert wars.

She had risen from a chair of ebony enriched by cunning Etruscan
art--four mounted knights charging across its heavy back in armor of
wrought gold. She stopped, facing the company, between two columns of
white marble beautifully sculptured. Upon each a vine rose, limberly
and with soft leaves in the stone, from base to capital. Her daughter
stood in the midst of a group of maids who were dressing her hair.

"Arria, will you come to me?" said the Lady Lucia.

The girl came quickly--a dainty creature of sixteen, her dark hair
waving, under jewelled fillets, to a knot behind. From below the knot
a row of curls fell upon the folds of her outer tunic. It was a filmy,
transparent thing--this garment--through which one could see the white
of arm and breast and the purple fillets on her legs.

"She is indeed beautiful in the yellow tunic. I should think that
scarlet rug had caught fire and wrapped her in its flame," said the
poet Ovid.

"Nay, her heart is afire, and its light hath the color of roses," said
an old philosopher who sat by. "Can you not see it shining through her
cheeks?"

"Young sirs," said the Lady Lucia, with a happy smile, as she raised
her daughter's hand, "now for your offers."

It was a merry challenge, and shows how lightly they treated a sacred
theme those days.

First rose