"I think," I said, "that it has all the merits you claim for it, but that not one charioteer in ten thousand could drive in it and avoid an upset, sooner or later, at a turn."
"Right you are!" he replied, "but I am one charioteer in ten thousand."
"Say in a hundred thousand," I ventured to add. "For surely you could not find, among all the professionals in the Empire, any other man to equal you in team-driving."
When we left the Palace Tanno saw me in my litter and insisted on following behind mine in his until he had seen me out of mine and into my own house.
There I had a very brief and very light lunch, Agathemer hovering over me and reminding me of Galen's orders for my diet, so that I found myself forbidden every viand which I craved and asked for, and limited to the very simple fare which had been prepared for me.
I woke soon and very wide awake. When I rolled into bed I had felt so utterly done up with the excitement of my interviews with Vedius and Satronius, with the exertion of standing in the Throne-room and through the Emperor's lecture on chariot design, that I had renounced my intention of calling on Vedia and had resigned myself to postponing my attempt to see her until the morrow.
I woke all feverish energy and restless determination to go to see her at once. Therefore, between the siesta hour and the hour of the bath, I presented myself at Vedia's mansion.
I was at once ushered into her atrium, where I found myself alone and where I sat waiting some time.
When a maid summoned me into her _tablinum_, I found her alone, seated in her favorite lounging chair, charmingly attired and, I thought, more lovely than I had ever seen her.
"'Vedia,'" if you please, she said coldly. "You have no manner of right to 'Caia' me, Andivius."
The distant formality of her address, her disdainful tone, the affront of her words, chilled me like a dash of cold water.
"Caia!" I stammered, "Vedia, I mean. What has happened? What is wrong?" For I could not credit that she would be incensed with me because of my involvement in the affray in Vediamnum nor that she would condemn me unheard, especially as Tanno had told me, in the Stadium of the Palace, that he had taken care to call on Vedia, and give her his version of my mishap.