"A man at last!" she said half aloud, and Persephoné, looking up from her occupation, gave her an inquisitive glance.
The splash of hidden fountains diffused a pleasant coolness in the chamber. Spiral wreaths of incense curled from a bronze tripod into the flower-scented ether. The throbbing of muted strings from harps and lutes, mingling with the sombre chants of distant processions, vibrated through the sun-kissed haze, producing a weird and almost startling effect.
After a pause of some duration, apparently oblivious of the fact that the announced caller was waiting without, Theodora turned to Persephoné, brushing with one white hand a stray raven lock from the alabaster forehead.
"Can it be the heat or the poison miasma that presages our Roman fever? Never has my spirit been so oppressed as it is to-day, as if the gloomy messengers from Lethé's shore were enfolding me in their shadowy pinions. I saw his face in the dream of the night"—she spoke as if soliloquizing—"it was as the face of one long dead—"
She paused with a shudder.
"Of whom does my lady speak?" Persephoné interposed with a swift glance at her mistress.
"The pilgrim who crossed my path to his own or my undoing. Has he been heard from again?"
A negative gesture came in response.
"His garb is responsible for much," replied the Circassian. "The city fairly swarms with his kind—"
The intentional contemptuous sting met its immediate rebuke.