"What brings you here?" he asked, shifting the subject.
"We are travelling, my beloved master and I," Mena answered.
"Phradates is with you, then?" the old man asked with an alarm that he was unable to conceal.
The steward paused before he answered, gazing at Ariston with eyes half closed and a faint smile upon his lips.
"Phradates is here," he said at last. "I know of what you are thinking. We have been friends too long to have secrets from each other. You need have no fear. Cepheus is dead and I have too many causes to despise Phradates to take his part."
He paused again and suddenly his face became convulsed with a spasm of hatred.
"I could strangle him!" he cried, clenching his hands as though he felt his master's throat beneath his fingers.
Ariston breathed more freely. At any rate, his property in Tyre was safe.
"Why don't you do it, then?" he asked coolly.
"Because the time has not yet come!" Mena replied fiercely. "For every insult that he has given me and for every blow that he has made me feel, he shall suffer tenfold! His fortune is dwindling, and in the end it will be mine. Then let him ask Mena for aid!"