Padway was surprised, though he shouldn't have been, at the effect of the news of his acquaintance with the king and the prefect. Well-born Romans called on him, and he was even asked to a couple of very dull dinners that began at four p.m. and lasted most of the night.
As he listened to the windy conversation and the windier speeches, he thought that a twentieth-century after-dinner speaker could have taken lessons in high-flown, meaningless rhetoric from these people. From the slightly nervous way that his hosts introduced him around, he gathered that they still regarded him as something of a monster, but a well-behaved monster whom it might be useful to know.
Even Cornelius Anicius looked him up and issued the long-coveted invitation to his house. He did not apologize for the slight snub in the library, but his deferential manner suggested that he remembered it.
Padway swallowed his pride and accepted. He thought it foolish to judge Anicius by his own standards. And he wanted another look at the pretty brunette.
When the time came, he got up from his desk, washed his hands, and told Fritharik to come along.
Fritharik said, scandalized: "You are going to walk to this Roman gentleman's house?"
"Sure. It's only a couple of miles. Do us good."
"Oh, most respectable boss, you can't! It isn't done! I know; I worked for such a patrician once. You should have a sedan chair, or at least a horse."
"Nonsense. Anyway, we've got only one saddle-horse. You don't want to walk while I ride, do you?"
"N-no—not that I mind walking; but it would look funny for a gentleman's free retainer like me to go afoot like a slave on a formal occasion."