“And, apart from any remains of anger, I ache with the humiliation of it all. Think of the infamy, of the degradation Almo has brought on himself!”
Lutorius pursed his lips.
“There is a certain social stigma upon any man who has joined a prize-fighting gang,” he conceded, “but the obloquy resulting from having been a gladiator has greatly attenuated amid the loose manners of our day. Nothing that becomes fashionable remains disgraceful. The social disgrace of it has greatly lessened as the thing has become more usual, and freemen who have been gladiators are rather acclaimed and sought after than condemned and shunned. They win a sort of vogue, if successful fighters.
“The treatment of such persons has greatly changed in recent years. Even since I began to remember there has been an all but universal alteration in the general attitude towards such cases—they have become too numerous for the old feelings to survive. Not only Roman citizens have entered gladiatorial schools, risen high in the profession, fought countless fights, served out their time as prize-fighters, and returned to their families, but noblemen have done so, even senators. Vescularius is as much a senator as if he had not won seventy-eight bouts in three years.”
“I know it,” Brinnaria admitted, “and I have thought over all that. But I am old-fashioned in my feelings even if I have often been the reverse in my behavior. I am revolted at the thought of Almo as a professional cut-throat—I was insulted at the sight of him in the arena. I feel that by his abasement of himself he has obliterated my love for him. It is as if he had never existed. I shall not marry him, even if we both outlive my obligatory term of service. I shall never marry anybody. I shall die a Vestal.”
“You feel that way now, of course,” Lutorius agreed, “but you will get over it, though you do not think so now.”
“I do not believe I shall ever get over it,” Brinnaria declared. “So many things rankle in my thoughts, the small things even more than what is more important. I grind my teeth over the mere legal consequences of his having been a gladiator. He will forfeit half the properties he inherited and he can never hold any office, civil or military.”
“All that,” said Lutorius, “the Emperor will attend to in full. And your thinking of such trifles shows that you even yet care more for Almo than you admit to yourself.
“You must let me tell you about him. He is in the care of the best physicians in Rome. They assure me that he will recover, that his face will show but the merest trace of a scar, no disfigurement whatever, and that he will walk without the slightest limp. He is comfortable and convalescing nicely. I am going to bring you news of him daily, whether you think you want it or not, and you are going to listen to me because I tell you to.”
Brinnaria, for once in her life, was submissive and silent.