t majestic
as well as the most maturely lovely of all the women in her kingdom.
Gone now were the buffoon tricks which the daughter of Acacius the
bearward had learned in the amphitheatre; gone too was the light charm
of the wanton, and what was left was the worthy mate of a great king,
the measured dignity of one who was every inch an empress.

Disregarding the two men, Theodora walked up to the boy, placed her two
white hands upon his shoulders, and looked with a long questioning
gaze, a gaze which began with hard suspicion and ended with tender
recognition, into those large lustrous eyes which were the very
reflection of her own. At first the sensitive lad was chilled by the
cold intent question of the look; but as it softened, his own spirit
responded, until suddenly, with a cry of "Mother! mother!" he cast
himself into her arms, his hands locked round her neck, his face buried
in her bosom. Carried away by the sudden natural outburst of emotion,
her own arms tightened round the lad's figure, and she strained him
for an instant to her heart. Then, the strength of the Empress gaining
instant command over the temporary weakness of the mother, she pushed
him back from her, and waved that they should leave her to herself. The
slaves in attendance hurried the two visitors from the room. Basil the
eunuch lingered, looking down at his mistress, who had thrown herself
upon a damask couch, her lips white and her bosom heaving with the
tumult of her emotion. She glanced up and met the chancellor's crafty
gaze, her woman's instinct reading the threat that lurked within it.

"I am in your power," she said. "The Emperor must never know of this."

"I am your slave," said the eunuch, with his ambiguous smile. "I am an
instrument in your hand. If it is your will that the Emperor should know
nothing, then who is to tell him?"

"But the monk, the boy? What are we to do?"

"There is only one way for safety," said the eunuch.

She looked at him with horrified eyes. His spongy hands were pointing
down to the floor. There was an underground world to this beautiful
palace, a shadow that was ever close to the light, a region of dimly-lit
passages, of shadowed corners, of noiseless, tongueless slaves, of
sudden, sharp screams in the darkness. To this the eunuch was pointing.

A terrible struggle rent her breast. The beautiful boy was hers, flesh
of her flesh, bone of her bone. She knew it beyond all question or
doubt. It was her one