(At least two witnesses were necessary under Roman law.)
"You?" she laughed. "You understand me?"
He recovered something of his self-possession, a wave of virility returning. High living and the feverish excitement of the palace regime had ruined his nerves but there were traces still of his original astuteness. He resumed his air of dignity.
"Pardon me," he said. "I have been overworked of late. I must see Galen about this jumpiness. When I said I understand you I meant, I realize that you are joking. Naturally you would not receive a highwayman in Cornificia's house, and at the same time accuse me of treason! Pray excuse my outburst—set it to the score of ill-health. I will see Galen."
"You shall see him now!" laughed Marcia, and Cornificia clapped her hands.
Less suddenly than Sextus had appeared, because his age was beginning to tell on him, Galen entered the court through a door behind the palm- trees and stood smiling, making his old-world, slow salute to Marcia. His bright eyes moved alertly amid wrinkles. He looked something like the statues of the elder Cato, only with a kindlier humor and less obstinacy at the corners of the mouth. Two slaves brought out a couch for him and vanished when he had taken his ease on it after fussing a little because the sun was in his eyes.
"My trade is to oppose death diplomatically," he remarked. "I am a poor diplomatist. I only gain a little here and there. Death wins inevitably. Nevertheless, they only summon me for consultation when they hope to gain a year or two for somebody. Marcia, unless you let Bultius Livius use that couch he will swoon. I warn you. The man's heart is weak. He has more brain than heart," he added. "How is our astrologer?"
He greeted Sextus with a wrinkled grin and beckoned him to share his couch. Sextus sat down and began chafing the old doctor's legs. Marcia took her time about letting Livius be seated.
"You heard Galen?" she asked. "We are here to cheat death diplomatically."
"Whose death?" Livius demanded.