oble lord," pursued the porter, hardly
ruffled by the outburst; "and I trust you will pardon me if I dallied
over-much; but--"

Sergius raised his hand. Then, thinking better of the blow, he seized
the man by the throat.

"Perhaps I can shake the words out like dice from a box. Now for the
Venus cast!" he cried, suiting the action to the speech.

"Are you making trial of your strength that you may break more readily
into Carthaginian houses? Remember it is soldiers with whom you are to
contend."

Sergius turned quickly, to see Marcia herself standing at the entrance
to the hall. In her eyes, on her lips, was malicious laughter; but a
little red spot on either cheek seemed to tell of some stronger feeling
behind. He had released the porter so quickly that the latter
staggered back almost into the fountain, and Marcia smiled.

"I think I have been taking a great deal of trouble for the sake of a
very discourteous person," she said. "I sent Minutia to tell a certain
soldier that I am willing to bid him farewell, despite his
unworthiness, and he comes and nearly strangles poor old Rhetus for
trying to say that I was awaiting him in the peristyle."

"Rhetus' attempt was not very successful, and my time was short," said
Sergius, growing alternately red and pale.

"And so you thought to hasten his speech by closing his throat? Oh!
you are a wise man--a very logical man. They should have made _you_
dictator, so that you could save Italy by surrendering Rome."

"Is it to say such things that you sent for me?" asked Sergius, after a
pause during which he struggled against embarrassment and wrath.

"Surely not, for how could I know that you were going to behave so
outrageously? If you will follow me, we will go into the peristyle."

She turned back through the passage, and Sergius followed, issuing a
moment later into a large, cloister-like court, open in the middle, and
decorated with flowers and shrubs. Four rows of columns, half plain,
half fluted, supported the shed roof that protected the frescoes.
These covered three of the walls. On the back was a garden scene so
painted as to seem like a continuation of the court itself into the far
distance; on the right was the combat between Aeneas and Turnus, and on
the left a representation of the first Torquatus despoiling the slain
Gaul of the trophy from which the family took its name.

"And now I will tell you why I sent."

She had seated herself in a marb