“I know none—­not yet,” she said.  “I can feel, though.  I hear the whispers in the Thermae—­”

“By Jupiter, then I will close the Thermae.”

“When I pass through the streets I read men’s faces—­”

“Snarled, have they?  My praetorian guard shall show them what it is to be bitten!  Mobs are no new things in Rome.  The old way is the proper way to deal with mobs!  Blood, corn and circuses, but principally blood!  By the Dioscuri, I grow weary of your warnings, Marcia!”

He thrust her away from him and went growling like a bear into his own apartment, where his voice could be heard cursing the attendants whose dangerous duty it was to divine in an instant what clothes he would wear and to help him into them.  He came out naked through the door, saw Marcia talking to Narcissus, laughed and disappeared again.  Marcia raised her voice: 

“Telamonion!  Oh, Telamonion!”

A curly-headed Greek boy hardly eight years old came running from the outer corridor—­all laughter—­one of those spoiled favorites of fortune whom it was the fashion to keep as pets.  Their usefulness consisted mainly in retention of their innocence.

“Telamonion, go in and play with him.  Go in and make him laugh.  He is bad tempered.”

Confident of everybody’s good-will, the child vanished through the curtains where Commodus roared him a greeting.  Marcia continued talking to Narcissus in a low voice.

“When did you see Sextus last?” she asked.

“But yesterday.”

“And what has he done, do you say?  Tell me that again.”

“He has found out the chiefs of the party of Lucius Septimius Severus.  He has also discovered the leaders of Pescennius Niger’s party.  He says, too, there is a smaller group that looks toward Clodius Albinus, who commands the troops in Britain.”

“Did he tell you names?”

“No.  He said he knew I would tell you, and you might tell Commodus, who would write all the names on his proscription list.  Sextus, I tell you, reckons his own life nothing, but he is extremely careful for his friends.”

“It would be easy to set a trap and catch him.  He is insolent.  He has had too much rein,” said Marcia.  “But what would be the use?” Narcissus answered.  “There would be Norbanus, too, to reckon with.  Each plays into the other’s hands.  Each knows the other’s secrets.  Kill one, and there remains the other—­doubly dangerous because alarmed.  They take turns to visit Rome, the other remaining in hiding with their following of freedmen and educated slaves.  They only commit just enough robbery to gain themselves an enviable reputation on the countryside.  They visit their friends in Rome in various disguises, and they travel all over Italy to plot with the adherents of this faction or the other.  Sextus favors Pertinax—­says he would make a respectable emperor—­ another Marcus Aurelius.  But Pertinax knows next to nothing