Hers was a fine frame, broad and square of shoulder, tall and lank of hip as some great tiger-cat, and splendid in its sinuosity. She had walked with a long stride and as she dropped into the chair she crossed her limbs so that her well-turned ankles showed and the hands she clasped about her knees were long and strong, white and remarkably tapering. Her features were almost too perfect; her beauty was sensuous, insolent and dazzling. Withal her presence intimated tremendous primal charm and the mystery of undiscovered potentialities. And she was royal! No mere upstart of an impostor could have assumed that perfect hauteur, that patrician bearing.
But the pretended Philadelphus was not impressed by this beauty.
"How now, Salome?" he demanded. "What play is this?"
The Ephesian actress motioned toward the shittim-wood casket.
"For that," she said calmly.
Her voice became, instantly, her foremost charm. It was a deep voice; the profoundest contralto with an illimitable strength in suggestion.
"Where is–what is that?"
"Two hundred talents."
Philadelphus took a step toward her.
"What!" he exclaimed evilly. "Whose two hundred talents?"