Suddenly something seemed to tell her that she had found such a one. Tristan's manly beauty had made a strong appeal upon her senses. The anomaly of his position had captivated her imagination. There was something strangely fascinating in the mystery that surrounded him, there was even a wild thrill of pleasure in the seeming shame of loving one whose garb stamped him as one claimed by the Church. He had braved her anger in refusing to accompany Persephoné. He had closed his eyes to Theodora's beauty, had sealed his ears to the song of the siren. "A man at last!" she said half aloud, and Persephoné, looking up from her occupation, gave her an inquisitive glance. The splash of hidden fountains diffused a pleasant coolness in the chamber. Spiral wreaths of incense curled from a bronze tripod into the flower-scented ether. The throbbing of muted strings from harps and lutes, mingling with the sombre chants of distant processions, vibrated through the sun-kissed haze, producing a weird and almost startling effect. After a pause of some duration, apparently oblivious of the fact that the announced caller was waiting without, Theodora turned to Persephoné, brushing with one white hand a stray raven lock from the alabaster forehead. "Can it be the heat or the poison miasma that presages our Roman fever? Never has my spirit been so oppressed as it is to-day, as if the gloomy messengers from Lethé's shore were enfolding me in their shadowy pinions. I saw his face in the dream of the night"--she spoke as if soliloquizing--"it was as the face of one long dead--" She paused with a shudder. "Of whom does my lady speak?" Persephoné interposed with a swift glance at her mistress. "The pilgrim who crossed my path to his own or my undoing. Has he been heard from again?" A negative gesture came in response. "His garb is responsible for much," replied the Circassian. "The city fairly swarms with his kind--" The intentional contemptuous sting met its immediate rebuke. "Not his kind," Theodora flashed back. "He has nothing in common with those others save the garb--and there is more beneath it than we wot of--" "The Lady Theodora's judgment is not to be gainsaid," the Circassian replied, without meeting her mistress' gaze. "Do they not throng to her bowers by the legion--" "A pilgrimage of the animals to Circé's sty--each eager to be transformed into his own native state," Theodora interposed contemptuously. "Perchance this holy man is in reality a prince from some mythical, fabled land--come to Rome to resist temptation and be forthwith canonized--" Persephoné's mirth suffered a check by Theodora's reply. "Stranger things have happened. All the world comes to Rome on one business or another. This one, however, has not his mind set on the Beatitudes--" "Nevertheless he dared not enter the forbidden gates," the Circassian ventured to object.