Oh, I say: now you are going too far. Imagine me ill-using you. Sweet piece, you wrong me.
LUCIA
[In surprise] I am not to be burned?
HELIOGABALUS
The idea! Burn you! The very thought of it revolts me. You have been misinformed, my dear. I am a very humane man—even a polite man.
LUCIA
But—
HELIOGABALUS
Yes, I know what you are going to say. Now and then I am irritable—and maybe order a man or two, or a dozen or so, to the—that is, now and then, I let the law take its course. But when a man is in bad health—and always has the stomach-ache—he sometimes gets out of humour. Who wouldn't? You have no idea how much I have suffered, and what awful medicines I have taken. Not half an hour ago I had to have another of those quacks ducked in this very room. Well, the Christians have this easy cure—this way of curing by laying on hands—and yet they let me suffer. Is it any wonder that I sometimes lose my temper? Now you say that you also know the trick, and I was wondering—
LUCIA