Marcia moved her melting, lazy, laughing eyes and Cornificia clapped her hands.  A slave came.

“Bring the astrologer.”

Sextus must have been listening, he appeared so instantly.  He stood with folded arms confronting them, his weathered face in sunlight.  Pigment was not needed to produce the healthy bronze hue of his skin; his curly hair, bound by a fillet, was unruly from the outdoor life he had been leading; the strong sinews of his arms and legs belied the ease of his pretended calling and the starry cloak he wore was laughable in its failure to disguise the man of action.  He saluted the three women with a gesture of the raised right hand that no man unaccustomed to the use of arms could imitate, then turning slightly toward Livius, acknowledged his nod with a humorous grin.

“So we meet again, Bultius Livius.”

“Again?” asked Marcia.

“Why yes, I met him in the house of Pertinax.  It is three days since we spoke together.  Three, or is it four, Livius?  I have been busy.  I forget.”

“Can Livius have lied?” asked Marcia.  She seemed to be enjoying the entertainment.

Livius threw caution to the winds.

“Is this a tribunal?” he demanded.  “If so, of what am I accused?” He tried to speak indignantly, but something caught in his throat.  The cough became a sob and in a moment he was half-hysterical.  “By Hercules, what judges!  What a witness!  Is he a two-headed witness who shall swear my life away?  I understand you, Marcia!”

(At least two witnesses were necessary under Roman law.)

“You?” she laughed.  “You understand me?”

He recovered something of his self-possession, a wave of virility returning.  High living and the feverish excitement of the palace regime had ruined his nerves but there were traces still of his original astuteness.  He resumed his air of dignity.

“Pardon me,” he said.  “I have been overworked of late.  I must see Galen about this jumpiness.  When I said I understand you I meant, I realize that you are joking.  Naturally you would not receive a highwayman in Cornificia’s house, and at the same time accuse me of treason!  Pray excuse my outburst—­set it to the score of ill-health.  I will see Galen.”

“You shall see him now!” laughed Marcia, and Cornificia clapped her hands.

Less suddenly than Sextus had appeared, because his age was beginning to tell on him, Galen entered the court through a door behind the palm-trees and stood smiling, making his old-world, slow salute to Marcia.  His bright eyes moved alertly amid wrinkles.  He looked something like the statues of the elder Cato, only with a kindlier humor and less obstinacy at the corners of the mouth.  Two slaves brought out a couch for him and vanished when he had taken his ease on it after fussing a little because the sun was in his eyes.