'As strong as a rock,' she replied, looking straight at him and thinking that at any moment she must fall. But still she forced her lips to a smile of finality.
'Think better of it,' he was beginning, when they heard a stir of commotion in the court below.
'They are coming for you!' she cried out in sudden panic. 'Go; I can't face any one just now....'
He opened the door on to the landing.
'Kato!' he said, falling back. Eve heard the note of fresh anguish in his voice.
Kato came in; even in that hour of horror they saw that she had merely dragged a quilt round her shoulders, and that her hair was down her back. In this guise her appearance was indescribably grotesque.
'Defeated, defeated,' she said in lost tones to Julian. She did not see that they had both involuntarily recoiled before her; she was beyond such considerations.
'Anastasia,' he said, taking her by the arm and shaking her slightly to recall her from her bemusement, 'here is something more urgent—thank God, you will be my ally—Eve must leave Aphros with me; tell her so, tell her so; she refuses.' He shook her more violently with the emphasis of his words.
'If he wants you....' Kato said, looking at Eve, who had retreated into the shadows and stood there, half fainting, supporting herself against the back of a chair. 'If he wants you....' she repeated, in a stupid voice, but her mind was far away.
'You don't understand, Anastasia,' Eve answered; 'it was I that betrayed him.' Again she thought she must fall.