Claudia sank down, as if she were weary, and a slave sprang forward to remove the white outer garment, worn upon the street to cover the costly silk one, and the jewels which she had worn in the amphitheatre.
Aurelius was conversing with the dark-skinned porter.
"Has Martius returned?" he asked.
"Yes, master. He came in about two hours after noon, but went out again almost immediately."
"Leaving no word?"
"No, master."
The porter stood watching his master as he walked away. There was a strange expression on his strongly marked face. He was pitted with small-pox, and over one eye was a deep scar. He had never forgotten how he got that scar, how he had fallen beneath a blow struck by that man's hand, the man who owned his body, but not his soul. In falling, he had struck his head against the corner of the marble pedestal supporting the statue of the god who ruled in this household, and had been carried away unconscious.
Ah, no, he had not forgotten!
Aurelius entered the court just in time to hear his wife saying To Virgilia in her severest tone: "Thou art exactly like thy step-brother, Martius, self-willed and foolish. Why else has he been exiled from Rome by thy father? He has worshipped strange gods, has followed after a man named Christus, a malefactor, a thief, crucified with thieves—"
"Mother!" exclaimed Virgilia, and there was that in her voice which stopped the stream of language, and made Claudia sit up straight and grasp the griffin-heads on the arms of her chair.