"I fear one nunnery is damned from chapel to refectory," growled Benilo, keeping his eyes on the floor, as if fearful of meeting those he instinctively felt burning upon him.
"Silence!" cried Theodora at last, stamping her foot on the floor, while a glow of hot resentment flushed her cheeks. "Your merriment and clamour only draws the sharper line between you and that other, of whom I spoke."
Roffredo looked up with a smile of indolence.
"And who is the demi-god?" he drawled lazily.
She measured him with undisguised scorn and contempt.
"The name! The story!" bellowed several individuals, raising their goblets and half spilling their contents in their besotten mood.
In a strange voice, melodious as the sound of Æolian harps when the night wind passes over their strings, amid profound silence Theodora related to her assembled guests the incident of the runaway steeds in which she had so prominently figured, the chariot having been her own,—the occupant herself. She omitted not a detail of the stranger's heroic deed, passing from her own thrilling experience to Vitelozzo's assault upon one of the New Vestals, and his discomfiture at the hand of him who had saved her life.
"And while your Roman scum hissed and hooted and raised not a finger in the girl's defence, her rescuer alone braved Vitelozzo's fury—I saw him whisper something into the ruffian's ear and the mighty lord skulked away like a frightened cur. By heaven, I have seen a man!" the Queen of the Groves concluded ecstatically, disdaining to dwell on her own rescue.
For a lingering moment there hovered silence on the assembly. Gradually it gave way to a flutter of questions.
"Who is he?" queried one.