“Yes,” assented Jacopo.  “That is very amusing.  But just suppose, for the sake of discussion—­it is impossible, of course, but suppose it—­that instead of there being only one perfectly beautiful woman in the world, whose name is Arisa, there should be two, and that the name of the other chanced to be Marietta Beroviero.”

Arisa raised her eyes and gazed steadily at Jacopo.

“You have seen her,” she said in a tone of conviction.  “She is beautiful.”

“No.  I give you my word that I have not seen her.  I only wanted to know what you would do then.”

“I do not believe that any woman is as beautiful as I am,” answered the Georgian, with the quiet simplicity of a savage.

“But if there were one, and you saw her?” insisted the man, to see what she would say.

“We could not both live.  One of us would kill the other.”

“I believe you would,” said Jacopo, watching her face.

She had forgotten his presence while she spoke; a fierce hardness had come into her eyes, and her upper lip was a little raised, in a cruel expression, just showing her teeth.  He was surprised.

“I never saw you like that,” he said.

“You should not make me think of killing,” she answered, suddenly leaving her seat and kneeling beside him on the divan.  “It is not good to think too much of killing—­it makes one wish to do it.”

“Then try and kill me with kisses,” he said, looking into her eyes, that were growing tender again.

“You would not know you were dying,” she whispered, her lips quite close to his.

As she kissed him, she loosened the collar from his white throat, and smoothed his thick hair back from his forehead upon the pillow, and she saw how pale he was, under her touch.

But by and by he fell asleep, and then she very softly drew her arm from beneath his tired head, and slipped from his side, and stood up, with a little sigh of relief.  The candle had burned to the socket; she blew it out.

It was still an hour before dawn when she left the room, lifting the heavy curtain that hung before the door of her inner chamber.  There, a faint light was burning before a shrine in a silver cup filled with oil.  As she fastened the door noiselessly behind her, a man caught her in his arms, lifting her off her feet like a child.

Shaggy black hair grew low upon his bossy forehead, his dark eyes were fierce and bloodshot, a rough beard only half concealed the huge jaw and iron lips.  He was half clad, in shirt and hose, and the muscles of his neck and arms stood out like brown ropes as he pressed the beautiful creature to his broad chest.

“I thought he would never sleep to-night,” she whispered.

Her eyelids drooped, and her cheeks grew deadly white, and the strong man felt the furious beating of her heart against his own breast.  He was Aristarchi, the Greek captain who had sold her for a slave, and she loved him.