TARSIS gave orders that no bright lights be shown at the windows and that the palace in other respects preserve an air of mourning. He passed the night in the library, writing at his Napoleonic table, smoking and brooding over the utter failure of his efforts to break Hera’s determination. He did not regret the attack he had made on Mario in the presence of the guests. For the New Democracy he harboured a deep hatred, and from a conviction born of this he had linked the doctrines of that party and Mario’s advocacy of them with the assassination of the King. It was easy for him to charge Forza with the loss of the royal visit, and easier to behold him as the author of his marital discord. The last fact clung to his meditations, which lasted into the morning hours. Hera, alone in her apartments, thought over the events of the day. What dwarfed all else in her consciousness was the discovery that Mario’s love had never faltered. In the joy of this revelation she was able to forget for the moment the bondage into which she had been lured by Tarsis, the price she had paid for obeying an instinct of honour. But in the days that followed she was reminded of it bitterly. At first the manner of her husband was such as to inform her negatively that he was willing no longer to keep up even a show of compliance. Next it took on a tenor of positive vexation. If she had been keenly sensible before that he exerted himself to win her affection, she was alive now to his studied resentment. He made no effort to mask his feelings. On the contrary, he paraded them resolutely. The details of domestic experience offered opportunities without number, and she observed that he seldom neglected them. He did not conduct his campaign of protest as a man of finer grain might have done. From open indifference to her wishes he passed to pronounced acts of discourtesy. Once, while she was with her maid dressing for a night at La Scala, he quitted the palace without warning, and did not return until long after the curtain had fallen on the ballet. In the morning he offered an apology, but no word of explanation. Every day brought a new sneer to his lip and to his eye glances of deepened ill-will. This mood never left him. She was made to feel it alike at the breakfast table and when he paid her the parting civilities of the night.