Spartacus Read Free Page B

they had little appetite left now, they were able to get over their sickness. This wayside inn was built in the Greek style, a rambling one story building with a pleasant veranda. The veranda, which was set out with tables, was built over a little gully through which ran a brook, and the grotto it faced upon was surrounded by banks of green and fragrant pine. There was no other smell here but the pine smell, the wet, sweet smell of the woods, and no sound except the polite hum of conversation from the diners and the music of the brook. “What an utterly delightful place,” Claudia said, and Caius, who had stopped here before, found a table for them and began to order lunch with great authority. The wine of the house, a sparkling amber drink, dry and refreshing, was set before them immediately, and as they sipped it, their appetite returned. They were at the back of the house, separated from the common room in front where soldiers and draymen and foreigners ate; here it was cool and shaded, and while the issue was rarely pressed, it was recognized that only knights and patricians were served here. That made it far from exclusive, for many knights were commercial travellers, business men and manufacturers and commission merchants and slave dealers; but it was a public house and not a private villa. Also, of late, the knights were aping the manners of the patricians and becoming less loud and obtrusive and unpleasant.

    Caius ordered cold pressed smoked duck and glacéd oranges, and until the food came, he made conversation about the latest play to open in Rome, a rather contrived comedy in poor imitation of the Greek, as so many were.

    The plot concerned an ugly and vulgar woman who made a pact with the gods to deliver them, in return for a day of grace and beauty, her husband’s heart. The husband had been sleeping with the mistress of one of the gods, and the intricate and shoddy plot was based on the thin motivation of revenge. At least, that was Helena’s feeling, but Caius protested that in spite of its superficiality, he thought it had many clever moments.

    “I liked it,” Claudia said simply.

    “I think we are too concerned with what a thing says instead of the way it says it,” Caius smiled. “For my part, I go to the theatre to be amused with what is clever. If one wants the drama of life and death, one can go to the arena and watch the gladiators cut each other up. I’ve noticed however that it isn’t the particularly brilliant or profound type who frequents the games.

    “You’re excusing bad writing,” Helena protested.

    “Not at all. I just don’t think the quality of writing in the theatre is of any great importance. It’s cheaper to hire a Greek writer than a litter-bearer, and I’m not one of those who make a cult of the Greeks.”

    As he said this last, Caius became conscious of a man standing alongside the table. The other tables had filled up, and this particular man, a commercial traveller of some sort, wondered whether he might not join them.

    “Just a bite and I’ll be going,” he said. “If you don’t mind the intrusion.”

    He was a tall, well-fleshed, well set up man, obviously prosperous, his clothes expensive; and not deferential except to the obvious family and rank of these young people. In the old times, the knights had not had this attitude toward the landed nobility; it was only when they became very wealthy as a class that they discovered ancestry to be one of the most difficult commodities to purchase, and thereby its value increased. Caius, like so many of his friends, often remarked on the contradiction between the loud democratic sentiments of these people and their intense class aspirations.

    “My name is Gaius Marcus Senvius,” said the knight. “Don’t hesitate to refuse me.”

    “Please sit down,” Helena answered. Caius introduced himself and the girls, and he was pleased at the other’s reaction.

    “I’ve had some dealings with some of your