not like manius , who if he 'd come to talk politics would cover it with the decent integument of a cup of wine or a rambling conversation about poetry or the religion of the sabines or his grandfather 's views on bees ; or tarquinius , who would gently ease into a question about , say , clevsin 's affiliations , by way of a digression on the wine of the region and the couple of women from clevsin that tanaquil knew in rome , though it was always rather obvious where he was leading well , they 'd been married so long that all his ploys were quite transparent to her .