"Fill the goblets! A brimmer of Chianti, red as blood—"
"Or the poppies in Roxana's hair!"
"Wine from Samos—sweetened with honey."
"A decoction of Nectar and Ambrosia."
The strangers who crowded the vast hall began to join in the mirth and jollity of their Roman hosts, their Oriental apathy or frozen stolidity melting slowly in the fumes of the wines.
A curtain had parted and a bevy of girls clad in diaphanous gowns of finest silver gauze made their way into the banquet hall and took their seats, as choice directed, beside the guests. Peals of laughter echoed through the vaulted dome, and excited voices were raised in clamorous disputations and contentious arguments. The wine began to flow more lavishly. The assembled guests grew more and more careless of their utterances. They flung themselves full length upon their luxurious couches, now pulling out handfuls of flowers from the tall malachite jars that stood near, and pelting the dancing girls for idle diversion, now summoning the attendant slaves to refill their wine cups, while they lay lounging at ease among the silken cushions.
There was a moment's silence, sudden, unexplained, like the presage of some dark event.
The slow solemn boom of a bell sounded the hour of midnight.
The voices had ceased.
With one accord, as though drawn by some magnetic spell, all turned their eyes towards the purple curtain through which Theodora had just entered, and, rising from their seats, they broke into boisterous welcome and acclaim. Young Fabio of the Cavalli whose flushed face had all the wanton, effeminate beauty of a pictured Dionysos, reeled forward, goblet in hand and, tossing the wine in the air, so that it splashed down at his feet, staining his garments, he shouted: