in the outer vestibule.[107] The heavy inner door turned slowly on its pivot, by some inside force, and disclosed a small, darkened atrium, only lighted by a clear sunbeam from the opening above, that passed through and illumined a playing fountain.  A single attendant stood in the doorway.  He was a tall, gaunt man in servile dress, with a rather sickly smile on his sharp yellow face.  Fabia alighted from her litter.  There was a certain secluded uncanniness about the house, which made her dislike for an instant to enter.  The slave in the door silently beckoned for her to come in.  The Vestal informed her bearers that she was likely to be absent some little time, and they must wait quietly without, and not annoy a dying man with unseemly laughter or loud conversation.  Then, without hesitancy, Fabia gathered her priestess’s cloak about her, and boldly entered the strange atrium.  As she did so, the attendant noiselessly closed the door, and what was further, shot home a bolt.

  [107] Ostium.

“There is no need for that,” remarked the Vestal, who never before in her life had experienced such an unaccountable sense of disquietude.

“It is my habit always to push the bolt,” said the slave, bowing, and leading the way toward the peristylium.

“You are Titus Denter’s slave?” asked Fabia.  The other nodded.  “And your master is a very sick man?”

“Your most noble ladyship shall judge for herself.”

“Take me to him at once, if he can see me.”

“He is waiting.”

The two went through the narrow passageway which led from the outer court of the atrium into the inner court of the peristylium.  Fabia was surprised to see that here all the marble work had been carefully washed clean, the little enclosed garden was in beautiful order, and in various corners and behind some of the pillars were bronze and sculptured statues of really choice art.  The slave stopped and pointed to a couch upholstered in crimson, beside the fish tank, where tame lampreys were rising for a bit of food.

“Take me to your master!” repeated Fabia, puzzled by the gesture.  “I am not weary.  You say he waits me?”

“He will be here,” replied the servant, with another bow.

“Here?” exclaimed the Vestal, now really alarmed.  “Here?  He, a man sick unto death?”

“Certainly; here!” broke in a strange voice; and forth from behind a pillar stepped Publius Gabinius, all pomaded and rouged, dressed only in a gauzy, many-folded scarlet synthesis.[108]

  [108] The “dinner coat” of the Romans.