"No? Nothing stands in your way now but yourself. Your supplanter hath removed herself. And I shall make your submission easy."
She turned from him and would have hurried back into the Greek's andronitis, but he put himself in her way.
"Listen!" he said, suddenly lifting his hand.
In the stillness which she finally was able to observe over the tumultuous beating of her enraged heart, a profound moan of great volume as from immense but remote struggle came into the corridor. Through it at times cut a sharp accession of sound, as if violence heightened at intervals, and steadily over it pulsated the throb of tireless siege-engines. It was the groan of the City of Delight in mortal anguish.
"This," he said in a soft voice touching his breast, "or that," motioning toward the dying city. "Choose. And by midnight!"
While she stood, gazing at him transfixed with the horror of her predicament, there was the sweeping of garments, the soft tinkle of pendants as they struck together, and Salome, the actress, was beside the pair. Close at hand was Amaryllis. The Greek showed for the first time discomfiture and an inability to rise to the demand of the occasion. The glance she shot at Laodice was full of cold anger that she had permitted herself to be surprised in company with Philadelphus.
Philadelphus drew back a step, but made no further movement toward withdrawing. Laodice would have retreated, but the actress stood in her way. With a motion full of stately indignation, Salome turned to Amaryllis.
"It so occurs, madam, that I can point out to you the disease which saps my husband's ambition. You observe that he is diverted now, as all men are diverted six weeks after marriage–by another woman. I am not a jealous woman. I am only concerned for his welfare and the welfare of the city of our fathers. For it is not himself that his luxurious indolence affects; but all the unhappy city which is suffering while he is able to help it. He must be saved. And I shall go with him out of this house into want and peril, but he shall be saved."
Laodice said nothing. She stood drawn up intensely; her brows knitted; her teeth on her lip; her insulted pride and growing resolution effecting a certain magnificence in her pose.
"I can find her another house," Amaryllis said.