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After my return from Baiae Falco pampered me more than ever and, in particular, arranged to take me with him to all amphitheater shows and have me sit beside him in the front row of the nobles immediately behind the boxes of the senators on the podium.
I omit my hasty measures for pursuing the thieves and attempting their capture or at least the recovery of their booty; and my urgent and important efforts to arrange that our guests should be properly received and the dinner should not be spoiled. Towards this last I did what could be done and with fair success, Falco playing up to my suggestions and dissimulating his chagrin.
Next day, naturally, I had a visit from Tanno, who even sacrificed his afternoon bath and came to see me while Falco was at the Baths of Titus. He embraced me heartily, when we were alone, and talked with his habitual mask of jocularity. "Three times dead, Caius," he said, "and still alive and fit.
Within a few days he, now my owner by inheritance, sold me to Pomponius Falco, as Nonius had intended to do himself. Falco liked me at first sight and I him. He was a man between thirty-five and forty years of age, a natural born bachelor and art connoisseur.
In his distress Falco conceived and set about putting into practice a scheme such as he would never have thought of or entertained if he had been the man he was when he bought me. When he was himself he had been the reverse of dishonorable. He came to me and said: "We are at the end of our tether, Pullanius and his gang will break off negotiations tomorrow if I can't get hold of Salinator.
I am averse to smirching Falco's memory by going more minutely into detail. Now Salinator had written Falco that he was coming to Rome and later, when he received a letter from Falco outlining the pending negotiations and their object, he had written promising to be in Rome by a specified date. He was most enthusiastic as to Falco's project and thought as well of it as did Falco.
I recognized the back of Flavius Clemens! If he turned round I felt I was lost. Yet I could not flee. Falco was certain to linger in the shop. I must keep my self-control and prepare to brazen out anything. The next instant I recognized the back of the lady next Flavius Clemens. Vedia! As I recognized her she turned, saw me, knew me through my disguise, flushed, and turned back.
Agathemer happened to visit me and I confided to him the contents of my old leather amulet-bag. Of course I had not worn it since I began life with Falco, as a greasy old amulet-bag of the meanest material and pattern was wholly out of keeping with the character I had assumed. I wore instead a flat locket of pure gold, containing a talisman from the Pontic fastnesses.
Was it love of Valentina, or was it ? He paused, as in his mind he made a swift review of the politics of Babbiano. A sudden possibility occurred to him that made his eyes sparkle and his hands tremble with eagerness. Was this but a political scheme to undermine his cousin's throne, to which Gonzaga had heard it rumoured that Francesco del Falco was an aspirant?
Strangely enough, when, at Baiae, I read letters from Falco, Tanno and Agathemer describing the devastation, my mind dwelt more on the annihilation of the shop where I had encountered Vedia than on the destruction of the Palace records and most of the public records, or of the many revered temples which had vanished in the flames.
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