After lunch I went to bed and to sleep.
I woke soon and very wide awake. When I rolled into bed I had felt so utterly done up with the excitement of my interviews with Vedius and Satronius, with the exertion of standing in the Throne-room and through the Emperor's lecture on chariot design, that I had renounced my intention of calling on Vedia and had resigned myself to postponing my attempt to see her until the morrow.
I woke all feverish energy and restless determination to go to see her at once. Therefore, between the siesta hour and the hour of the bath, I presented myself at Vedia's mansion.
I was at once ushered into her atrium, where I found myself alone and where I sat waiting some time.
When a maid summoned me into her tablinum, I found her alone, seated in her favorite lounging chair, charmingly attired and, I thought, more lovely than I had ever seen her.
"Oh, Caia!" I cried.
She bridled and stared at me haughtily.
"'Vedia,'" if you please, she said coldly. "You have no manner of right to
'Caia' me, Andivius."
The distant formality of her address, her disdainful tone, the affront of her words, chilled me like a dash of cold water.
"Caia!" I stammered, "Vedia, I mean. What has happened? What is wrong?" For I could not credit that she would be incensed with me because of my involvement in the affray in Vediamnum nor that she would condemn me unheard, especially as Tanno had told me, in the Stadium of the Palace, that he had taken care to call on Vedia, and give her his version of my mishap.
She glowered at me.
"Your effrontery," she burst out, "amazes me. I am incredulous that I really see you in my home, that you really have the shamelessness to force yourself into my presence! It is an unforgivable affront that you should pretend love for me and aspire to be my husband and all the while be philandering after a freedwoman; but that you should parade yourself on the high road with her all the way from your villa to Rome, with the hussy enthroned in your own travelling carriage, is far worse. That you should get involved in roadside brawls with competitors for the possession of the minx is worse yet. Worst of all that you should advertise by all these doings, to all our world, your infatuation for such a creature and your greater interest in her than in me. I am indignant that I have considered marrying a suitor capable of such vileness, of such fatuity, of such folly."
I was like a sailboat taken all aback by a sudden change of wind. I could not believe my ears.
"I never took the slightest interest in Marcia," I protested, "except to keep my uncle from marrying her, after he set her free. She made eyes at me also, of course, for she made eyes at every marriageable man within reach. But I never had anything to do with her, never called on her by myself, never so much as talked to her alone. I went to her dinners, of course. All widowers and bachelors of our district went to her dinners. But her dinners were the pattern of propriety in every way. Your own grandmother's famous dinners were not more decorous. Except for being a guest, with others, at her dinners, I never was at her villa. I lent my carriage not to her but to her bridegroom, Marcus Martius, a prosperous gentleman of my neighborhood, of whom you have often heard me speak, a friend of my uncle's and a friend of mine since boyhood. The fights, as Tanno explained to you, had nothing to do with Marcia and her involvement in them was as accidental as mine."
Vedia did not look a particle mollified.
"You men," she said, "are all alike. You will philander about your nasty jades. But, at least, when you vow that you love one woman and one only, and use every artifice to induce her to marry you, you should feel it incumbent on you to keep away from such creatures as this Marcia of yours. But you must needs dangle about her and go to her dinners. That was bad enough. But, while wooing me, to arrange a mock marriage for her with a local confederate and then positively bring her to Rome with you was infinitely worse. I am insulted, of course. But, above and beyond your treachery to me, I am insulted at your bungling your clumsy intrigues and flaunting the minx in the face of all the world and setting all fashionable Rome to gossiping about you and your hussy and to wondering how I am going to act about it.
"I'll show them and you how I am going to act! I'm angry at your double- dealing; at your lies I am furious. I hate you. I hope I'll never set eyes on you again. The sooner you are gone, the better I'll like it. And I'll give orders to ensure your never darkening my doors again!"
I tried to argue with her, to persuade her, to convince her, to induce her to listen to me.
She raged at me.
Dazed, I groped my way to my litter and, once in it, lost consciousness entirely, not in a faint, but in the sleep of total exhaustion.
As I rolled into my litter, feeling utterly unfit to enjoy a bath with any natural associates, I had ordered my bearers to take me home.
There I rested a while, for I waked before I reached home. Then I bathed, ate a simple dinner, alone with Agathemer, and went at once to bed.
CHAPTER VII
A RATHER GOOD DAY
I slept soundly all night but woke at the first appearance of light. I lay abed, my mind milling over my situation, over Vedia's unexpected jealousy of Marcia, over the absurdity of it, over her illogical but impregnable indignation and over the equally baseless but similarly unalterable hostility of Vedius and Satronius.
I concluded to try again to placate all three. It seemed to me I could recall many omissions and infelicities in what I had said to both magnates, while in dealing with Vedia I seemed to myself to have been tongue-tied and fragmentary.
After the bit of bread and hot mulled wine which I did not crave, but which Agathemer insisted on my taking according to Galen's orders, I held a brief morning reception. My nine farmer-tenants were all present, all pathetically and touchingly glad to see me again about, even old Chryseros Philargyrus.
They had a petition to prefer, namely, that I should give them permission to leave Rome and return home, jointly and severally, just as soon as they pleased. Ligo Atrior acted as spokesman and said that they had come provided for a month's stay, as I had ordered, but they felt that they could see all the sights of Rome which would interest them before the month was out, and some sooner than others. Moreover they felt that although they had left their farms in the best of condition and in faithful hands, yet their desire to return home would soon overcome their interest in sight-seeing and would grow more overmastering daily.
I readily accorded what they asked.
Murmex Lucro was there, and his appearance of superhuman strength impressed me even more than on the road, I bade him meet me at the Palace, and instructed him by which entrance to approach it and at what portal and precisely where to take his stand in order that I might not miss him. Agathemer suggested that I detail one of my slaves to act as his guide and I did so.
My salutants disposed of without hurry and to the last man, in spite of
Agathemer's protests, I ordered my litter.
At the Vedian mansion I was refused admission. Agathemer and even I argued and expostulated, but the doorkeeper said he had explicit orders not to admit me, and the four big Nubians flanking the vestibule, two on a side, looked capable of using muscular force on any would-be intruder and appeared eager for a pretext for hurling themselves on me.
I climbed back into my litter.
As my men shouldered it, the doorkeeper or some one of his helpers made the mistake of unchaining