-"

"You are less than half a man without your mistress!" Marcia exploded.
"Don't stand trying to impress me with your dignity. I don't believe in
it! I will send for Cornificia."

"No, no!" Pertinax showed instant resolution. "Cornificia shall not be
dragged in. The responsibility is yours and mine. Let us not lessen
our dignity by involving an innocent woman."

For a moment that made Marcia breathless. She was staggered by his
innocence, not his assertion of Cornificia's--bemused by the man's
ability to believe what he chose to believe, as if Cornificia had not
been the very first who plotted to make him Caesar. Cornificia more
than any one had contrived to suggest to the praetorian guard that their
interest might best be served some day by befriending Pertinax; she
more than any one had disarmed Commodus' suspicion by complaining to him
about Pertinax' lack of self-assertiveness, which had become Commodus'
chief reason for not mistrusting him. By pretending to report to
Commodus the private doings of Pertinax and a number of other important
people, Cornificia had undermined Commodus' faith in his secret
informers who might else have been dangerous.

"Your Cornificia," Marcia began then changed her mind. Disillusionment
would do no good. She must play on the man's illusion that he was the
master of his own will. "Very well," she went on, "Yours be the
decision! No woman can decide such issues. We are all in your hands--
Cornificia and Galen--all of us--aye, and Rome, too--and even Sextus and
his friends. But you will never have another such opportunity. It is
tonight or never, Pertinax!"

He winced. He was about to speak, but something interrupted him. The
great door carved with cupids leading to the emperor's bedchamber opened
inch by inch and Telamonion came out, closing it softly behind him.

"Caesar sleeps," said the child, "and the wind blew out the lamp. He was
very cross. It is dark. It is cold and lonely in there."

In his hand he held a sheet of parchment, covered with writing and
creased from his attempts to make a parchment helmet, "Show me," he
said, holding out the sheet to Marcia.

She took him on her knee and began reading what was written, putting him
down when he tugged at the parchment to make her show him how to fold
it. She found him another sheet to play with and told him to take it to
Pertinax who was a soldier and knew more about helmets. Then she went
on reading, clu