Slowly the stole dropped from the eyes—very pretty eyes, that, joined with an equally pretty mouth, took on an expression of hurt astonishment.
"That sent me?" she murmured, half sadly. "Ah, well; doubtless it is a matter of insolence for a poor slave girl to wish and ask concerning the health of the noble Sergius."
The tribune watched her closely and with mingled feelings. He had settled in his mind, from the moment of Agathocles' mention of the fact, that the slave woman who called must be sent by Marcia, and it was not without a pang of very poignant regret that he relinquished the idea. That he could not place this girl—one of a class so far beneath the notice of a Roman of rank—was not strange, and yet the face seemed vaguely familiar to him, and—it was certainly little short of beautiful. A man flouted, or, still worse, ignored by a mistress at whose shrine he has worshipped, might well be pardoned a feeling of satisfaction that his well-being was a matter of interest to at least one pretty woman.
Meanwhile the girl stood before him, her arms hanging by her sides, her eyes modestly cast down, and her whole attitude indicative of detected audacity and submissive despair. Agathocles had transferred his attention from his patient to the visitor, and his scrutiny seemed to trouble her.
"So it was yourself alone who desired to learn of my welfare," said Sergius, with a faint smile. "Believe me, my girl, no Roman is too noble to value the interest of beauty like yours."
There was just the suspicion of a laugh in the downcast eyes, but it sped away as swiftly as it came, and she made haste to answer:—
"Truly, my lord does not measure his own worth. There are many, as much above me in beauty as they are in rank; many who cannot venture to show the concern they doubtless feel. What has a poor slave girl to do with maidenly modesty—the plaything of any master who chooses to smile upon her for a moment?"
She spoke bitterly, and Sergius, half frowning, half smiling, reached out his hand. The contrast between this girl's frankly spoken interest and the courted Marcia's trivial indifference came to him more powerfully. What a fool a man was to waste himself on some haughty mistress who exacted all things and gave nothing! She had taken the hand he held out, and now, suddenly, he drew her to him, and kissed her.
Then he found new occasion to marvel over the strange ways of women. As if awakened from a dream or a part in a comedy, to some instant and frightful peril, she wrenched herself from him and, wrapping her cloak around her face, turned and ran like a deer through the hallway and out into the street.
Sergius was dazed for a moment by the suddenness of it all; then he rose.