Philadelphus sat opposite her in the ivory chair which was hers by right.  She sat in the exedra and listened eagerly to the things he said with her finger-tips on her lips and her eyes gazing from under her brow as her head drooped.

She had ceased long ago to debate idly on the actual identity of the man who had called himself Hesper of Ephesus.  There was another question that absorbed her.  Of late, it had been brought home to her that the charm of Laodice for the stranger from Ephesus, to whom the Greek knew the girl had fled, had been her purity.  Why should it matter so much about virtue? she had asked herself.  Why should it weigh so immeasurably more than the noble gifts of wit and beauty and strength and charm?  Behold, she was wise enough to educate a barbarous nation, beautiful enough to bewitch potentates—­for a time—­strong enough to take a city; yet Hesper, who best of all could appreciate the value of these things, had turned from her to Laodice, who was merely chaste.

The greater part of the jealous and bitter passion that had shaken her then was dumb regret that the measure of charm was so irrational—­and that she had not believed in it, in time, in time!

Now, however, since she had become convinced that Laodice had gone to Hesper for refuge, hope had awakened in her, but so filled with uncertainty and lack of confidence in another’s weakness that it was little more than a torture to her.

If Laodice had gone to this winsome stranger, either claiming to be the wife of Philadelphus or acknowledging the imposture, there was now no difference between Laodice and herself!

But, she asked herself, was it not possible that this lovely girl who had shown signs of illimitable fortitude, could live in the shelter of the captivating Hesper as uprightly as she had lived under the roof of the man she called her husband?

In one exigency, the hopes of Amaryllis budded; in the other, her intuitive belief in the strength of Laodice discouraged her.  And while she alternately hoped and doubted, Philadelphus, in the chair opposite her, talked.

“It follows that you and I must work together to gain diverse ends.  If our fortunes are to be tragic, we are undoing each other in this conjunction.  Since I in all frankness prefer it to turn out comedy, let us make no error.  Are you weary of John?  Do you seek a new diversion?”

She looked at him, at first puzzled, then with a frown.  It leaped to her lips, grown impatient with suffering, to tell him all that she had evolved of the histories of himself, his lady and of Hesper; but there seemed to be an element of recklessness in that which threatened to do away with a means for her success.  He did not wait for her answer.

“And I,” he said with mock intensity, “am done to death with weariness—­with my moneyer, this lady of mine.  Let us be diverted while we live, for by the signs we shall all die soon.”