"Either it must be Severus, or else you!" said Marcia. "Which is it to
be?"

Pertinax folded his arms.

"I would feel it my duty to preserve Rome from Severus. But you go too
fast. Our Commodus is on the throne--"

"And writes proscription lists!" said Marcia. "Who knows what names are
on the lists already? Who knows what Bultius Livius may have told him?
Who knows which of us will be alive tomorrow morning? Who knows what
Sextus is doing? If Sextus has heard of this crisis he will seize the
moment and either arouse the praetorian guard to mutiny or else reach
Commodus himself and slay him with his own hand! Sextus is a man! Are
you no more than Flavia Titiana's cuckold and Cornificia's plaything?"

"I am a Roman," Pertinax retorted angrily. "I think of Rome before
myself. You women only think of passion and ambition. Rome--city of a
thousand triumphs!" He turned away, pacing the floor again, knitting
his fingers behind him. "Pertinax would offer up himself if he might
bring back the Augustan days--if he might win the warfare that Tiberius
lost. One Pertinax is nothing in the life of Rome. One life, three-
quarters spent, is but a poor pledge to the gods--yet too much to be
thrown away in vain. The auguries are all mixed nowadays. I doubt
them. I mistrust the shaven priests who dole out answers in return for
minted money. I have knelt before the holy shrine of Vesta, but the
Virgins were as vague as the Egyptian who prophesied--"

He hesitated.