Diana grinned. She looked more like a tomboy than ever before. "Fun," she said. "And you know it. Don't tell me you didn't get a kick out of playing God at the Bacchanal." "Well," Forrester confessed, "yes." He sighed. "And I guess that Bacchanal is going to be the one really high spot in a very shortened sort of life." Diana sat upright. "What are you talking about?" "What else would I be talking about? The Bacchanal. You know what happened. You must know--everybody must by now. Mars is probably demanding my head from Hera right now. Unless he's got more complicated ideas like taking me apart limb by limb. I remember he mentioned that." Diana stood up and came over to Forrester. "Why would Mars do something like that and especially now? And what makes you think Hera would go along with him if he did?" "Why not? Now that I've failed my tests--" "_Failed?_" Diana cried. "You _haven't_ failed!" Forrester stood up shakily. "Of course I have. After what happened at the Bacchanal, I--" "Don't pay any attention to that," Diana said. "Mars is a louse. Always has been, I hear. Nobody likes him. As a matter of fact, you've just passed your finals. The last test was to see if you could figure out who we were--and you've done that, haven't you?" There was a long, taut silence. Then Diana laughed. "Your face looks the way mine must have, over three thousand years ago!" "What are you talking about?" Still dazed, he wasn't quite sure he had heard her rightly. "When they told me the same thing. After the original Diana was killed in a 'hunting accident'--frankly, she seems to have been too independent to suit Hera--and I passed my own finals, I--" She stopped. "Now don't look at me like that," Diana said. "And pull yourself together, because we've got to get to the Final Investiture. But it's all true. I'm a substitute too." CHAPTER ELEVEN The Great God Dionysus, Lord of the Vine, Ruler of the Revels, Master of the Planting and the Harvest, Bestower of the Golden Touch, Overseer of the Poor, Comforter of the Worker and Patron of the Drunkard, sat silently in a cheap bar on Lower Third Avenue, New York, slowly imbibing his seventh brandy-and-soda. It tasted anything but satisfactory as it went down; he preferred vodka or even gin, but after all, he asked himself, if a God couldn't be loyal to his own products, then who could? He was dressed in an inexpensive brown suit, and his face did not look like that of Dionysus, or even of William Forrester. Though neatly turned out, he looked a little like an out-of-work bookkeeper. But it was obvious that he hadn't been out of work for very long. _Hell of a note_, he thought, _when a God has to skulk in some cheap bar just because some other God has it in for him_.