Duessa soon had Fulviac at the tongue's point.

"You are the first man in this assemblage?" she had asked him.

"Madame, that is so."

"I have a truth to make known."

"Unmask to me."

She hesitated, then obeyed him.

"Possibly I am known to you," she said.

Fulviac stood back a step, and looked at her as a man might look at an old love. A knot of wrinkles showed on his forehead.

"Duessa of the Black Hair."

"Ah, in the old days."