I shuddered.
“An Olynthian. One of the vanquished. But where do you intend to finish this picture?”
“At Athens.”
“Upon the soil of Athens your slave will be free.”
“He will be—when I wish it, and not before.”
“But then, if you treat your captive so, have you no fear whatever of what the laws will say?”
“The laws?” questioned Parrhasius with a smile. “The laws are in the hollow of my hand, even as are the folds of this mantle that I now throw over my shoulder, behind me!”
And with a magnificent movement he seemed at the same time to enwrap himself with purple and with the sun.