"Could not this, too, have been a part of the plot?" pleaded Masters desperately.
"A part of Neaera's plot, not a part of Chairo's. No one can talk ten minutes with Chairo now without being convinced that his first object was to get possession of Lydia; the political intrigue in the latest stage of the affair became altogether a secondary matter."
"Neaera was not," interrupted Ariston, "pleased with the rôle Lydia played in the matter. At one time there was no small intimacy between Chairo and Neaera; Neaera is not a woman to see her place taken by another without vindictiveness. In preventing the escape of Chairo she was serving a double purpose; she kept the issue alive, and she satisfied a personal pique."
Masters looked at me as though to learn my opinion on this view.
"I gathered this: from a few words Neaera dropped after she had set me free," I said; "she told me that all Chairo wanted was Lydia."
Masters jumped up from his chair.
"Then you would have me believe," said he, "that my wife is a vixen!"
At this I jumped up too.
"Masters," I said, "I have told you the facts because I felt you were entitled to them. If you cannot stand hearing the facts you should not have asked for them."
There was a moment when it seemed doubtful whether we might not come to blows; but the flash went out of Masters's eye as he looked at me, and presently he held out his hand to me and said: