ath cabinets and the rubbing-down rooms;
one swims with them, lounges with them, joins groups of chatting gentlemen
and ladies, chats, goes off, and all the while one cannot, one simply
cannot stare at a nude woman, any more than any of the women ever stares
at any man.

It is a social convention. But not the less amazing, although a fact.

One not only cannot scrutinize a woman, one cannot scrutinize a group of
women, even at a distance, even all the way across a swimming pool. So,
hoping to encounter Vedia in the gathering, I yet could not look for her.

I had met and talked with many of my acquaintances, notably Marcus Martius
and his bride Marcia.

Marcia, rosy as the inside of a sea-shell, with her gold hair confined by
a net of gold wire, was a bewitching creature, if I had been able to let
my eyes dwell on her.

She was as contained and slow spoken and soft-voiced as always, but she
was, for her, notably complimentary as to my share in the two fights;
thanked me warmly for defending her, declared that she would certainly
have been carried off, either as Xantha or Greia, or as a hostage for one
or the other, if I had not fought "like both the Dioscuri at once," as she
phrased it.

Martius corroborated her opinion of my services to them and thanked me
warmly.

Delayed by chats with friends and acquaintances, held up by distant
acquaintances and even by persons hardly known to me by sight, who
congratulated me on the Emperor's public championing of me against my
powerful Sabine neighbors, I felt my strength ebbing and sometimes saw a
gray blur between my eyes and what I looked at.

I was, in fact, so weak that I nearly fainted when, unseen in the swarm of
bathers until he was close to me, I encountered Talponius Pulto, tall,
handsome, disdainful, sneering and malignant as usual. From his proximity
I escaped as unobtrusively as I could and as promptly.

The cold douche and a swim in the cold pool had revived me. Also, in the
cold pool I had encountered Nemestronia, still personable enough at
eighty-odd to mingle daily with her social world, as nude as they, and
enjoy herself thoroughly. Yet, at her age, she knew she looked better when
under water, and spent most of her time in the pools. She and I did some
fancy swimming together, while she questioned me about my health.

I did not spend any more time than I could help between the cold pool and
the tepid pool; no more at least than importunate acquaintance