Whereto Vivian replied with a pleasantry so broad and so significant that Heliodora's cheek fired; for she saw that Basil stood within hearing. 'Nay, I must be brief with you, young monkey!' she exclaimed. 'Away! When I am at leisure for your tricks I will send for you. Be off!' 'And leave you with that...?' cried the other, using a villainous word. Hereupon Basil addressed him. 'Whether you stay or go, foul mouth, is naught to me. I am myself in haste to be gone, but I will not leave you without a lesson by which, perchance, you may profit.' As he uttered the last word, he dealt Vivian such a buffet on the side of the head with his open hand that the youngster staggered. The result of this, Basil had well foreseen; he stood watchful, and in an instant, as a dagger gleamed before his eyes, grasped the descending arm that wielded it. Vivian struggled furiously, but was overcome by the other's strength. Flung violently to the ground, his head struck against the edge of a marble seat, and he lay senseless. Heliodora looked on with the eyes with which she had often followed a fight between man and beast in the amphitheatre. Pride, and something more, lit up her countenance as she turned to Basil. 'Brave generous!' she exclaimed, her hands clasped against her bosom. 'Not even to draw your dagger! Noble Basil!' 'Have him looked to,' was the reply; 'and console him as you choose. Lady, I bid you farewell.' For a moment Heliodora stood as though she would let him thus depart. Basil was nearing the entrance to the corridor, when she sprang after him. Her arms were about his neck; her body clung against his; she breathed hotly into his eyes as she panted forth words, Latin, Greek, all burning with shameless desire. But Basil was not thus to be subdued. The things that he had heard and seen, and now at last the hand-to-hand conflict, had put far from him all temptation of the flesh; his senses were cold as the marbles round about him. This woman, who had never been anything to him but a lure and a peril, whom he had regarded with the contempt natural in one of his birth towards all but a very few of her sex, now disgusted him. He freed himself from her embrace with little ceremony. 'Have I deceived you?' he asked. 'Have I pretended to come here for anything but my own purpose, which you pretended to serve?' Heliodora stood in a strange attitude, her arms thrown back, her body leaning forward--much like some fierce and beautiful animal watching the moment to spring. 'Do you believe what that harlot said?' she asked in a thick voice. 'Enough of it to understand my folly in hoping to learn anything through you. Let us part, and think of each other no more.' She caught his arm and put her face close to his. 'Leave me thus, and your life shall pay for it.' Basil laughed scornfully.