When Persephoné came to assist her mistress, she wondered how the mood of the evening had passed. While attiring Theodora, the Circassian could not but wonder at the marvellous beauty of this woman who had bent the hearts of men to her desires like wind blown reeds, only to break them and cast them at their feet. Only on the previous day a new wooer had entered the lists; a man rude of speech and manner, vain withal and self-satisfied, had laid gifts at Theodora's feet. Roger de Laval was the great man's name. He came from some far away, fabled land, and it was rumored that he had come to Rome to seek his truant wife. Having surprised her in the arms of her lover, whom she had followed, he had killed both. Such a temper was to the liking of Persephoné, and, as her soft white fingers played around her mistress' throat, in the endeavor to fasten her rose-colored tunic, she could hardly restrain herself from encircling that white throat and strangling the woman who had spurned the attentions of one for whose love she would have sacrificed her soul. "What of the Lady Hellayne?" Theodora broke the heavy silence. "She remains in the chamber which the Lady Theodora has assigned to her." Persephoné replied. "Are the eunuchs at their post?" "Before her door and beneath her windows." Theodora gave a nod. "Bring the Lady Hellayne here!" "The Lady Theodora has not breakfasted." "I know! Yet I would not delay this meeting longer." Persephoné hesitated. "The Lady Hellayne is in a perilous mood--" "I should love nothing better than to find her so," Theodora replied, extending her two snowy arms, whose steely strength Persephoné knew so well. "I long for the conflict with this marble statue as I have never longed for anything in my life. I could find it in my heart to be happy if she destroyed me with those white hands that rival mine, if she but stepped out of her reserve, her marble calm, if her soul ignited from mine." "If I know aught about her kind, the Lady Theodora will do well to be wary," Persephoné replied demurely. The covert taunt had its instantaneous effect. "Deem you I fear this white siren from the North?" Theodora flashed, regarding herself in the bronze mirror and brushing a stray lock of hair from her white brow. "What will you do with her, Lady Theodora?" Persephoné purred. Theodora's face was very white. "There are times when nothing but the physical touch will satisfy. And now go and fetch hither the Lady Hellayne that I may hear from her own lips how she fared under the roof of her rival." Persephoné departed from the room, while Theodora arose and, stepping to the casement, looked out into the blossoming gardens that encircled her palace.