s you?"

Lysidice crept nearer to her mistress and whispered, "Though he says he
is the King, though he commands kingly, he is wrapped in his mantle so
closely that I could not see his face."

Lycabetta laughed derisively.

"Is that all? What of that? When great folk come to these gardens they
sometimes ape invisibility."

Lysidice ventured a little closer to Lycabetta. Her tale was not all
told.

"Ay," she said; "but the night wind fluttered his cloak a little and I
saw something of his habit. It was more like the livery of a fool than
the apparel of a king."

Lycabetta's dark eyebrows lowered a little; her red lips tightened.

"Indeed! Does he send his fool for an ambassador after keeping me close
through the long dark? Well, bring him in. We shall see."

Lysidice saluted and passed from her presence. Lycabetta seated herself
on her couch thoughtfully. She was not in her gentlest temper, for she
was vexed at her failure to snare Perpetua, and she was restless after
denying her door to so many friends for a king who did not come, and now
perhaps sent his fool on love-errands. The King was the King; there was
no one like the King; but was there a woman in Syracuse like herself, or
worth her favors? Mentally she reviewed her rivals with a crafty eye;
the pretty court peahens, her own skilled minions, none could please
the King so well. As for Perpetua, the King's hot love and hot hate for
the mountain maid earned only her contempt. The girl might prove
enticing by-and-by, to a green palate, when she was pliant, but now she
was rough country fare.

Her reverie was interrupted by the return of Lysidice, followed by a man
so muffled in a rough cloak that he was impossible to divine. It might
hide a king; it might hide a beggar; it covered both. Whoever he was,
the man stood still within a few feet of Lycabetta. His eyes were
watching her over his lifted arm, which draped the cloak about his body,
but some of the stuff was wound so cowllike about his head that she
could discover nothing of his face. Lysidice lingered, curiosity
conquering her duty to depart, and Lycabetta did not heed her; she
heeded only the silent, motionless man.

"Well?" she interrogated, sharply, as the man made no sign. At her word
he cast his wrapping from him, and Lycabetta beheld with some irritation
the twisted form and writhen features of the fool Diogenes. Lysidice
crept round to the other side of her mistress and whispered to her: