Calpurnius: Very likely. But it can't be changed. So long as the world lasts, centuries hence, wherever soldiers are, still it will be the law.
Gleva: Soldiers! Say soldiers, and all must be forgiven!
Calpurnius: Much, at all events, by those with understanding. Hear what a soldier is. You see him strong, browned by the sun, flashing in armour, tramping the earth, a conqueror--a god, yes, a god! Ask his centurion who drills him in the barrack square.
Gleva: But the centurion----
Calpurnius: The centurion's the god, then? Ask me, his Captain, who tells him off. Am I the god, then? Ask my Colonel, who tells me off. Is it my Colonel, my General? Ask the Emperor in Rome who, for a fault, strips them of their command and brings them home. Soldiers are men trained to endurance by a hard discipline, cursed, ridiculed, punished like children but with a man's punishments, so that when the great ordeal comes they may move, fight, die, like a machine. The soldier! He suffers discomfort, burns in the desert, freezes in the snow at another's orders. He has no liberty, he must not argue, he must not answer; and he gets an obol a day, and in the end--in the end, a man, he gives his life without complaint, without faltering, gladly as a mere trifle in the business of the day, so that his country may endure. And what's his reward? What does he get? A woman's smile in his hour of furlough. That's his reward. He takes it. Blame him who will. The woman thinks him a god, and he does not tell her of the barrack square. Good luck to him and her, I say. But at the last, there's the long parting, just as you and I part in the forest of Anderida to-night. Other soldiers will say good-bye here on this spot to other women in centuries from now. Their trouble will be heavy, my dear, but they'll obey the soldier's law.
Gleva: Very well, then! Each to his own! I, too, will obey that law. (She confronts him, erect and, strong.)
Calpurnius: You will? (Doubtfully.)
Gleva: To the letter. To the very last letter. I'll gather my men. There shall be no more Romans in Anderida. There shall be only stubble in the fields where the scythes of my chariots have run.
Calpurnius: Silence! (Sternly.)
Gleva: I learn my lesson from my Lord Calpurnius. Why should my teacher blame me if I learn it thoroughly?