inward
fires,--of passion, you understand! Be sure and say to her that if she
doth not come, I will find out why." He hugged himself gently, leering
at Nicanor. "And--Nicanor, I ask this as a friend, not require it as a
service; wherefore--you understand?--nothing need be said about it. I
would not get the poor girl into trouble, but seeing that she urgeth
so--"

Nicanor looked unmoved upon his fat smirk.

"I will do as you command," he said, and picked up the brazier and
turned to go.

"Nay, never say command," Hito said in haste, and deigned to lay a hand
on the slave's broad shoulder. "I do but ask it of you in all
friendship. Therefore you should be grateful that I, Hito, admit you
thus to confidence. For, look you, there be reasons; this, one might
say, is--not official."

Nicanor's grim lips relaxed to a half smile.

"I will do it, then, since Hito craves it," he said, and went his way
across the court. Hito shook his heavy jowls in rage.

"Dog!" he muttered. "'Hito craves' forsooth! I'll have that up against
you, mighty lordling, one of these fine days! In the name of the gods,
what is one to do with a fellow who cares not the snap of his finger
for any punishment I can devise?"

Nicanor went along the covered gallery leading from the slaves' quarters
to the mansion. At intervals he shifted the heavy brazier from hand to
hand. The heat of the smouldering charcoal in it rose to his face,
gratefully warm. When he reached the anteroom of Lady Varia's
apartments, going by the rear passages, he found no one. The room,
warmed to Summer heat, and filled with flowers, was empty. Perfumed
lamps burned low, swinging from their bronze and silver standards; in a
curtained recess in the wall a marble Minerva gleamed shadowed white,
half concealed by curtains of dusky red. A silver jar of incense,
burning before the shrine, tinged the air with faint fragrance. All was
quiet and peaceful, a safe and sheltered nest. From the other inner
rooms he could hear voices; a girl's voice steadily intoning sonorous
blank verse; at intervals another voice, interrupting, slow and languid,
that set his heart beating hard and his face flushing. He picked up a
bell from the stand near the entrance and rang it.

The recitative stopped; there was a murmur of mingled voices, and
footsteps. A girl parted the curtains which hung between the rooms and
came toward him. Her hair was black, fastened by long pins of bone; her
face white and r