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Next morning, as she descended from her litter at Vocco's door, a Vestal's carriage drove up and Gargilia got out. "You're surprised to see me at this hour," she said, "and I don't wonder." When they were indoors and seated with Flexinna she explained: "We have been having a terrible night at the Atrium and the worst sort of luck this morning.
Just outside, in the nook left by the angle of the wall enclosing the Temple, she found the litter set down clear of the throng that surged and jostled ceaselessly up and down the Holy Street. The bearers stood about it, one holding Vocco's horse; all, like the street-crowd, vague and unreal in the fog. Through the fog Vocco strode towards her and checked, amazed.
No clue, no ghost of a clue came to light. The Greens, like the other companies, could find among their charioteers, their jockeys, their free employees, their slaves, no individual in the least answering to descriptions of Almo. All governmental efforts, all professional efforts, all private efforts, all Vocco's efforts, all Brinnaria's efforts, were completely baffled.
"But I want you to release me from my promise in one small detail. I want to be present at Vocco's to see you two break and eat the old-fashioned cake, and I want to be first to sign your marriage register. I promise to leave as soon as I have signed the register." Brinnaria, of course, could not but acquiesce. "Good for you!" said the Emperor, "and thank you too.
ABOUT three years after her farewell to Almo, on entering Vocco's house one afternoon, Brinnaria had a presentiment of something wrong. The children were as vociferous and as whimsical as usual, but there was a nameless difference in Flexinna's expression and bearing.
"Did anybody ever hear the like!" exclaimed Brinnaria. Vocco's agents verified this news and made it quite certain that Almo was masquerading as a slave and as a villicus of a fine estate in lower Latium, near Fregellae, southeast of Rome on the Latin highroad, about half way between Capua and the capital.
And of those who really enjoy their homes most are remarried after a divorce, or even after two or more. Our society suffers from a plague worse than the pestilence itself, a plague of greed for excitement, eagerness for novelty, of peevishness and fickleness. "In this unhealthy atmosphere such households as Vocco's are most notable.
But, with all her haste, care outpaced her steeds or carriers. She gnawed her heart out. Only at Vocco's house, amid Flexinna's bevy of youngsters, did she find peace of mind. Even there, at last, care followed her. When Alma had been more than a year at Fregellae, Brinnaria, visiting Flexinna about the middle of May, scented more trouble.
It was decided that on leaving the Atrium after her exauguration, she should spend one night as the guest of Nemestronia; that on the next day she should go to Vocco's house and be married from there; but that in the ceremonies, Lutorius, who had been her spiritual father for many years, should take the part which her own father would have taken had he been alive.
It was also decided that the wedding feast should be at Almo's house, after the wedding-procession, instead of at Vocco's before, as it would have been if she had living parents and was being married from her home.
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