“What amazes you?”
Lysidice crept nearer to her mistress and whispered, “Though he says he is the King, though he commands kingly, he is wrapped in his mantle so closely that I could not see his face.”
Lycabetta laughed derisively.
“Is that all? What of that? When great folk come to these gardens they sometimes ape invisibility.”
Lysidice ventured a little closer to Lycabetta. Her tale was not all told.
“Ay,” she said; “but the night wind fluttered his cloak a little and I saw something of his habit. It was more like the livery of a fool than the apparel of a king.”
Lycabetta’s dark eyebrows lowered a little; her red lips tightened.
“Indeed! Does he send his fool for an ambassador after keeping me close through the long dark? Well, bring him in. We shall see.”
Lysidice saluted and passed from her presence. Lycabetta seated herself on her couch thoughtfully. She was not in her gentlest temper, for she was vexed at her failure to snare Perpetua, and she was restless after denying her door to so many friends for a king who did not come, and now perhaps sent his fool on love-errands. The King was the King; there was no one like the King; but was there a woman in Syracuse like herself, or worth her favors? Mentally she reviewed her rivals with a crafty eye; the pretty court peahens, her own skilled minions, none could please the King so well. As for Perpetua, the King’s hot love and hot hate for the mountain maid earned only her contempt. The girl might prove enticing by-and-by, to a green palate, when she was pliant, but now she was rough country fare.
Her reverie was interrupted by the return of Lysidice, followed by a man so muffled in a rough cloak that he was impossible to divine. It might hide a king; it might hide a beggar; it covered both. Whoever he was, the man stood still within a few feet of Lycabetta. His eyes were watching her over his lifted arm, which draped the cloak about his body, but some of the stuff was wound so cowllike about his head that she could discover nothing of his face. Lysidice lingered, curiosity conquering her duty to depart, and Lycabetta did not heed her; she heeded only the silent, motionless man.