Electric light flooded the scene, flashing back from the gems of the women. There was the hubbub of the crowd in the street, with its hue and cry. From the gardens the scent of magnolia came in on the evening breeze. With a shuddering fear Hera saw the veins of her husband’s neck strain, as she remembered them in that hour of wrath in the monastery. He moved a pace closer to Mario. “Honourable Forza,” he said, his voice like an edged blade, “the worst has happened. Are you content?” The others were mystified, but Mario had an inkling of what he meant. “Why do you ask that?” he inquired, striving to be calm. “Because it is your work!” the other answered, savagely. “Do you mean, Signor Tarsis, that I have had a hand in this assassination?” “That is precisely what I mean.” “The assertion is absurd, and it is a lie!” Mario declared. “I regret that I have to say this to you in your own house, but you have forced me to it.” Tarsis tossed his head and laughed mockingly. His studied decorum of the gentleman was forgotten, and he stood forth in the truth of his native self. A moment he eyed the man he hated in a vulgar effect of shrewdness, then shook an index finger sidewise before Mario’s face, as the Sicilian peasant uses to denote that he is not to be gammoned. “Signori,” he began, turning to the astonished guests at his side, “this man knows how to play the traitor and at the same time act the innocent. He and I understand each other excellently. We shall have no denial from him on that point, I think,” he added, throwing a glance at his wife. “There are one or two more here who understand.” “I thought he knew something,” whispered Signora Nobody-in-particular to her companion. “Delicious! He’s going to tell!” A similar thought must have impelled Mario. He stepped forward a little, and, with the sole purpose of saving an insensate husband from sullying his wife’s name, he spoke to Tarsis, his tone severe, but not without a shade of entreaty. “Guard your tongue,” he said. “If you have a quarrel with me, this is not the time or place.” Tarsis faced him, with blazing eyes, his last vestige of restraint thrown off. “I will be judge of the time and place to speak!” he exclaimed. “You know too well what I meant when I said this is your work. Perhaps there are some here who do not catch my meaning. You and your crew of demagogues are to blame for the King’s death. I charge you with it publicly. You poison the minds of ignorant people, set the workers against their betters, teach them to hate authority, incite them to riot and bloodshed. I say that you have plotted against the King’s life, and are just as much the taker of it as the miscreant who fired the shot.”