"I have nothing to conceal from you," I continued. "Then tell me just what happened," answered Masters. I took a seat and so did Ariston, and thought for a moment how I could tell the facts in so far as they concerned the attempt at rescue without disclosing Neaera's designs upon myself. I confined myself to the part she played when I gave Chairo's message to Balbus. "Might not this have been done by Neaera," asked Masters, "in compliance with a prior understanding with Chairo?" "I cannot believe," said I, "that there was any such understanding; indeed, I am convinced that if Neaera was not herself the cause of Chairo's capture, she was a party to it." I told then the story of the tampering with Chairo's carriage. "Could not this, too, have been a part of the plot?" pleaded Masters desperately. "A part of Neaera's plot, not a part of Chairo's. No one can talk ten minutes with Chairo now without being convinced that his first object was to get possession of Lydia; the political intrigue in the latest stage of the affair became altogether a secondary matter." "Neaera was not," interrupted Ariston, "pleased with the rôle Lydia played in the matter. At one time there was no small intimacy between Chairo and Neaera; Neaera is not a woman to see her place taken by another without vindictiveness. In preventing the escape of Chairo she was serving a double purpose; she kept the issue alive, and she satisfied a personal pique." Masters looked at me as though to learn my opinion on this view. "I gathered this: from a few words Neaera dropped after she had set me free," I said; "she told me that all Chairo wanted was Lydia." Masters jumped up from his chair. "Then you would have me believe," said he, "that my wife is a vixen!" At this I jumped up too. "Masters," I said, "I have told you the facts because I felt you were entitled to them. If you cannot stand hearing the facts you should not have asked for them." There was a moment when it seemed doubtful whether we might not come to blows; but the flash went out of Masters's eye as he looked at me, and presently he held out his hand to me and said: "I am sure you have intended to render me a service, and I suppose in the end"--he paused a moment as he shook my hand, and added--"in the end it will prove to be so." Then, taking up his cap and cloak, he said: "At any rate there need be no hard feeling between myself and Chairo, but I am a little dazed by what I have heard, and so I shall ask you both to keep this interview confidential for a time. In a few days I shall know better just how to act." CHAPTER XXII "TREASONS, STRATAGEMS, AND SPOILS"