ring.

"The Christians, you know, don't approve of charms," Marcia answered.

"By Jupiter, there's not much that they do approve of!" he retorted. "I
begin to weary of your Christians. I begin to think Nero was right, and
my father, too! There was a wisdom in treating Christians as vermin!
It might not be a bad thing, Marcia, to warn your Christians to procure
themselves a charm or two against my weariness of their perpetual
efforts to govern me! The Christians, I suppose, have been telling you
to keep me out of the arena? Hence this living statuary in the
corridor, and all this talk about the dignity of Rome! Tscharr-rrh!
There's more dignity about one gladiator's death than in all Rome
outside the arena! Woman, you forget you are only a woman. I remember
that! I am a god! I have the blood of Caesar in my veins. And like
the unseen gods, I take my pleasure watching men and women die! I loose
my javelins like thunderbolts--like Jupiter himself! Like Hercules--"

He paused. He noticed Marcia was laughing. Only she, in all the Roman
empire, dared to mock him when he boasted. Not even she knew why he let
her do it. He began to smile again, the frightful frown that rode over
his eyes dispersing, leaving his forehead as smooth as marble.

"If I should marry you and make you empress," he said, "how long do you
think I should last after that? You are clever enough to rule the fools
who squawk and jabber in the senate and the Forum. You are beautiful
enough to start another siege of Troy! But remember: You are Caesar's
concubine, not empress! Just remember that, will you! When I find a
woman lovelier than you, and wiser, I will give you and your Christians
a taste of Nero's policy. Now--do you love me?"

"If I did not, could I stand before you and receive these insults?" she
retorted, trusting to the inspiration of the moment; for she had no
method with him.

"I would willingly die," she said, "if you would give the love you have
bestowed on me to Rome instead, and use your godlike energy in ruling
wisely, rather than in killing men and winning chariot races. One
Marcia does not matter much. One Commodus can--"

"Can love his Marcia!" he interrupted, with a high-pitched laugh. He
seized her, nearly crushing out her breath. "A Caius and a Caia we have
been! By Jupiter, if not for you and Paulus I would have left Rome long
ago to march in Alexander's wake! I would have carved me a new empire
tha