Now there was no doubt of it; now, as the actress, skilled in every wile, hid the hand holding the ring, as well as the other empty one, behind her back, she would know how to manage so that she could use the garland which Hermon handed her.

Ledscha’s foreboding was instantly fulfilled, for when Althea held out her little tightly clinched fist to the artists and asked Myrtilus to choose, the hand to which he pointed and she then opened was empty, and she took from the other the ring, which she displayed with well-feigned regret to the spectators.

Then Hermon knelt before her, and, as he offered Althea his wreath, his dark eyes gazed so ardently into the blue ones of the red-haired Greek-like Queen Arsinoe, she was of Thracian descent—­that Ledscha was now positively certain she knew for whose sake her lover had so basely betrayed her.

How she hated this bold woman!

Yet she was forced to keep quiet, and pressed her lips tightly together as Althea seized the white sheet and with marvellous celerity wound it about her until it fell in exquisite folds like a long robe.

Surprise, curiosity, and a pleasant sense of satisfaction in seeing what seemed to her a shameless display withdrawn from her lover’s eyes, rendered it easier for Ledscha to maintain her composure; yet she felt the blood throbbing in her temples as Hermon remained kneeling before the Hellene, gazing intently into her expressive face.

Was it not too narrow wholly to please the man who had known how to praise her own beauty so passionately?  Did not the outlines of Althea’s figure, which the bombyx robe only partially concealed, lack roundness even more than her own?

And yet!  As soon as Althea had transformed the sheet into a robe, and held the wreath above him, Hermon’s gaze rested on hers as though enraptured, while from her bright blue eyes a flood of ardent admiration poured upon the man for whom she held the victor’s wreath.

This was done with the upper portion of her body bending very far forward.  The slender figure was poised on one foot; the other, covered to the ankle with the long robe, hovered in the air.  Had not the wings which, as Nike, belonged to her been lacking, every one would have been convinced that she was flying—­that she had just descended from the heights of Olympus to crown the kneeling victor.  Not only her hand, her gaze and her every feature awarded the prize to the man at her feet.

There was no doubt that, if Nike herself came to the earth to make the best man happy with the noblest of crowns, the spectacle would be a similar one.

And Hermon!  No garlanded victor could look up to the gracious divinity more joyously, more completely enthralled by grateful rapture.

The applause which now rang out more and more loudly was certainly not undeserved, but it pierced Ledscha’s soul like a mockery, like the bitterest scorn.