"I do not understand," the actress said disgustedly. "You are clumsy, Philadelphus, when you are playful. If this is all, I shall return to my chamber."
She rose, but Laodice sprang into her path.
"Hold!" she cried. "Philadelphus, hast thou accepted this woman without proofs?"
Philadelphus smiled and shook his head.
"And by the by," he asked, "what proof have you?"
Up to that moment Laodice had burned with confident rage, feeling that, by force of the justice of her cause, she might overthrow this preposterous villainy, but at Philadelphus' question she suddenly chilled and blanched and shrank back. A new and supreme disadvantage of her loss presented itself to her at last. She could not prove her identity!
Meanwhile, seeing Laodice falter, the woman's lip curled.
"Weak! Very weak, Philadelphus," she said. "You must invent something better. The success of a jest is all that pardons a jester."
"She robbed me!" Laodice panted impotently. "Robbed me, after my father had given her refuge!"
"Of what?" the Greek asked.