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Not even her carriage rides had impressed her so tellingly with the sensation of her own importance in the great world of Imperial Rome. "How does he look to you?" Manlia asked. They were seated in the order of their seniority, Causidiena on the right, then Gargilia, Manlia next Brinnaria. "He looks crushed under his responsibilities and anxieties," Brinnaria replied.
Quite the reverse with the others. Manlia was a large young woman of about twenty-two, a typical Roman aristocrat, her hair between dark brown and black, her complexion swarthy, her figure abundant.
"There," sighed Manlia, "I prayed hard." "So did I," Brinnaria murmured, "but I prayed the other way. He ought to have been killed already. Numisia has recognized him and he has been recognized by three or four nobles along the coping. The rumor is spreading from each of them and running through the audience."
She scanned the faces in the front row to left and right as far as she could make them out clearly. She peered across the open space of the arena, puckering her eyes to see better. When she caught sight of what she was looking for she turned timidly, leaned past Manlia and asked Causidiena: "May I wave my hand to mother?" "Certainly, my child," Causidiena assured her.
Manlia, in fact, looking about was aware of an unusual stir among the spectators, of notes being handed along and read, of whisperings, callings, signs, pointings; of messengers worming their way from row to row and from tier to tier. Almo won his third bout.
Numisia is a woman to be relied on too, and Gargilia and Manlia are capable creatures, but not one of the three is your equal in any respect and they are but three; the others are a corpse, a doll and an infant. "Understand I'm not growling at your departure, I am trying to convey to you how highly I esteem you.
Viewing fights of this kind Manlia felt rather than heard or saw a change in Brinnaria next her, felt her stiffen and grow silent, rigid and tense. Manlia glanced at her, followed her gaze and became interested in the fight Brinnaria was watching. Before them, not immediately below them, but some distance out in the arena, fought a conspicuous pair of gladiators.
The robe of a Roman lady was sleeveless and seamless, rather like a very long pair of very thin blankets, all in one piece. Tied, as she had tied it, by one corner, it made a sort of rope as it hung. She had acted so quickly that no one noticed her, not even Manlia, who sat next her, staring fascinatedly at the spectacle of the wrestling elephants and their warring crews.
Brinnaria, left alone, did all she could to make the ashes on the Altar look like the remains of a fire that had died out of itself, to efface all signs of her efforts to find live coals under the ashes. She judged that she had succeeded pretty well. Then she composed herself on the floor and was asleep in ten breaths. There Manlia found her when the daylight was already strong.
The populace groaned. Manlia prayed. Brinnaria, under scrutiny of two hundred thousand eyes, sat erect, fanned herself steadily, and gazed straight before her. To all appearance she was as indifferent to Almo as if he did not exist. After that Alma moved like a sleep-walker or a man in a dream, dully and dazedly. The big man feinted and lunged cleverly.
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