after a month of rainy weather.

"This is better!" he exclaimed. "Ho, there, Narcissus! Ho, there,
Horatius! Ha! So you recover, Albinus? What a skull the man has! Not
many could take what I gave him and be on their feet again within the
week! You may follow me, Narcissus. But where is Marcia?"

Marcia called to him through the curtained door that led to the next
room--

"I am waiting, Commodus."

"By Jupiter, when she calls me Commodus it means an argument! Are some
more of her Christians in the carceres, I wonder? Or has some new
highwayman--By Juno's breasts, I tremble when she calls me Commodus!"

The gladiators laughed. He made a pass at one of them, tripped him,
scuffled a moment and raised him struggling in the air, then flung him
into the nearest group, who broke his fall and set him on his feet
again.

"Am I strong enough to face my Marcia?" he asked and, laughing, passed
into the other room, where half a dozen women grouped themselves around
the imperial mistress.

"What now?" he demanded. "Why am I called Commodus?"

He stood magnificent, with folded arms, confronting her, play-acting the
part of a guiltless man arraigned before the magistrate.

"O Roman Hercules," she said, "I spoke in haste, you came so much sooner
than expected. What woman can remember you are anything but Caesar when
you smile at her? I am in love, and being loved, I am--"

"Contriving some new net for me, I'll wager! Come and watch the new men
training with the caestus; I will listen to your plan for ruling me and
Rome while the sight of a good set-to stirs my genius to resist your
blandishments!"

"Caesar," she said, "speak first with me alone." Instantly his manner
changed. He made a gesture of impatience. His sudden scowl frightened
the women standing behind Marcia, although she appeared not to notice
it, with the same peculiar trick of seeming not to see what she did not
wish to seem to see that she had used when she walked naked through the
Thermae.

"Send your scared women away then," he retorted. "I trust Narcissus.
You may speak before him."

Her women vanished, hurrying into another room, the last one drawing a
cord that closed a jingling curtain.

"Do you not trust me?" asked Marcia. "And is it seemly, Commodus, that
I should speak to you before a gladiator?"

"Speak or be silent!" he grumbled, giving her a black look, but she did
not seem to notice it. Her genius--the secret of her power