Even yet Marcian did not feel quite safe from his Greek pursuers.

He feared a meeting between them and the Praenestines.
Having bathed (a luxury after waterless Rome), and eaten a morsel of bread with a draught of his own wine, he called his housekeeper, and bade her make known to the lady, his guest, that he begged permission to wait upon her.

With but a few minutes' delay Veranilda descended to the room which lay behind the atrium.

Marcian, loitering among the ivied plane-trees without, was told of her coming, and at once entered.
She was alone, standing at the back of the room; her hands hanging linked before her, the lower part of the arms white against the folds of a russet-coloured tunic.

And Marcian beheld her face.
He took a few rapid steps toward her, checked himself, bowed profoundly, and said in a somewhat abrupt voice: 'Gracious lady, is it by your own wish that you are unattended?
Or have my women, by long disuse, so forgotten their duties--' Veranilda interrupted him.
'I assure you it was my own wish, lord Marcian.