unsteady gait, and did obeisance before the divan. "Most
astounding Empress," cried he, "fairest among the Goddesses, Queen
regnant of my adoring heart, hail!"

Phorenice with a smile stretched him out her cup. I looked to
see him pour respectful libation, but no such thing. He set the
drink to his lips and drained it to the final drop. "May all your
troubles," he cried, "pass from you as easily, and leave as
pleasant a flavour."

The Empress turned to me with one of her quick looks. "You do
not like this new habit?"

To which I replied bluntly enough that to pour out liquor at
a person's feet had grown through custom to be a mark of respect,
but that drinking it seemed to me mere self-indulgence, which might
be practised anywhere.

"You still keep to the old austere teachings," she said. "Our
newer code bids us enjoy life first, and order other things so as
not to meddle with our more immediate pleasure."

And so the feast went on, the guests practising their
gluttonies and their absurdities, and the guards standing to their
arms round the circuit of the walls as motionless and as stern as
the statues carven in the white stone beyond them. But a term was
put to the orgy with something of suddenness. There was a stir at
the farther doorway of the banqueting-hall, and a clash, as two of
the guards joined their spears across the entrance. But the man
they tried to stop--or perhaps it was to pin--passed them unharmed,