Marinus left just as the sun was setting over Kithera. He had dressed in the darkest clothes he could find, though they would be of little use hiding him in the well-lit halls of the Hermenides household. There was nothing else on his mind now except recovering that necklace, for Pelleus's sake.

  He crept up the drive, for the gate was open, and approached the house on tiptoe, finding to his good fortune that no one was on guard. Marinus entered the hall; all was still within, save for the distant sound of voices in the dining room. He scanned the stairs and landing; checked each niche and cubby-hole for staff on duty, but there was no one to be found.

  "Here goes nothing! I don't suppose I shall ever get a chance like this again," he murmured to himself, and mounted the stairs.

  He was out of breath by the time he reached the landing, though he was not tired. His heart was pounding, and in the silence of that inner sanctum of the Hermenides household he could hear the blood rushing in his ears. Along the landing he went, following Agatha's instructions.

  "Third door on the right," he whispered, treading lightly on the rug-covered floor. The room in question was slightly ajar; the door swung open noiselessly at his touch. He beheld a bedroom, furnished in red and royal purple hangings and with walls a deep terracotta red. A large, low bed piled with cushions stood in the centre of the room, and a table at its side was piled with bric-a-brac.

  No one here.

  Marinus breathed again at last, and dashed to the bedside table. He had just pulled open a draw in its side when a sound made his pause. A sound of laughter.

  "Is this what you're looking for?" a voice asked, and Marinus span around. It was Hippolyta.

  She stood framed against the windows on the far side of the room, hidden from view of the open doorway, and she was fingering the diamond necklace on her chest. But besides this sole adornment, she was clothed in negligée of some fine, diaphanous fabric that covered all and yet concealed nothing. It was almost transparent, and Marinus beheld her with something approaching mortal terror. The smile on her face only increased his alarm.

  "Oh yes, I know just what you and that strumpet are after; one of us here has figured out your games," she said in a cold voice. "You see, unlike my besotted daughter and my dolt of a husband, I did not buy your tall tales about falling on our hospitality by mere chance. What are they after? I asked myself, for from the first I suspected blackmail."

  She began to move as she spoke, walking around the room in an arc, though she kept her eyes fixed on Marinus.

  "Why else should you have let slip the one name that would rob my husband of his peace, stirring up his shabby remains of a conscience? But nothing came of that, and so I was forced to rethink. Chrysanthe, of course, is a great lure for men, but not for a pair of lovers like yourselves. I did not think a cunning girl like Pusanella would stand by while her boyfriend seduced the daughter of the house."

  She was close to Marinus now, standing at the foot of the bed, and there was a triumphant look on her face.

  "No, once I saw that greedy slattern eyeing my jewels, I knew what was up."

  She leaned towards Marinus.

  "Do you like what you see?" she said, stroking the diamonds and almost pressing herself upon him. "It could be yours; all of it."

  Marinus blanched. He would have backed away, but the beside table was behind him, and he was almost sitting on it by now.

  "What do you-?"

  "In fact it is my only condition: it is to be all or nothing," Hippolyta went on. "If you wish to recover the diamonds – which I will willingly grant you – then you must first possess their possessor. Let the mistress of the house become your mistress; one night is all I ask! Lie with me..."

  Marinus trembled from head to foot. She was so near to him he could hardly think. Certainly he had never seen so beautiful a woman – not in such an intimate way. He could smell the musks and perfumes on her; the fragrance of her breath, sweetened by rose-water, feel its heat on his face. It was all but overpowering, and perhaps only his shock and disquiet stopped him from yielding there and then. But he made a singular effort, and pushed past her towards the windows, desperate for space.

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  Chrysanthe was nowhere in his thoughts – it was not loyalty that strengthened his resolve in that moment, only a kind of horror, as if the ground had suddenly fallen away before his feet and he tottered on the brink. Hippolyta's eyes were dark, and from so close they were as windows into the abyss for Marinus. He swallowed with difficulty and drew back from her.

  Now, for a moment, he could think again. It was well that he moved away when he did – to have lingered longer would surely have sealed his fate, and as the situation became clearer to him he was increasingly aware of the choice before him – the temptation to yield did not lessen, but grew stronger. But it was laced with some other emotion – a feeling of disgust that tarnished mere animal nature with the uniquely human element of shame.

  "Why?" was all he could manage to say. He wiped his forehead with a trembling hand, and would not look at Hippolyta.

  "Because I desire you! I will not call it love. A woman who has lived as I have has no right to seek for love, not from one as pure as you. But I have such a passion as no one else could extinguish. Marinus, it must be you!"

  "I don't-"

  "Know this! I have never loved Agon, and no virtue of mine has kept me at his side these long years. One day you shall understand that marriage is a mere habit, nothing more nor less. I resigned myself to that fate, seeing none better, and many that were far worse, and I was content. Then... no! I will not tell of my daughter, and the changes she wrought..."

  A shadow of doubt fell upon Hippolyta's face. At her words, Chrysanthe flickered into Marinus's thoughts like a candle in the dark.

  "Marinus, I have no one; nor did I ever long for someone as I long for you... you have no idea... age does not quell our desires, it only raises the stakes. It is a tightrope, and where the young may tumble from a safe height without harm, from up here, it is death! To fall into love, or lust..."

  "Please, say no more of that!" Marinus stammered, finding his voice again. "It is not possible – please, just turn me out."

  "Not possible? My darling, nothing could be easier!" Hippolyta swept across the room towards Marinus, and would have taken his head in her hands had not instinct made him recoil.

  "Just once; one night is all I ask! Then you may be gone with these," she flashed the diamonds on her breast. "One moment of infidelity is nothing to you, but to me, it should be a memory treasured for all time, precious as gold..."

  Her hands were still stretched out towards him in entreaty, and Marinus became conscious again of the door that stood to his left. It was not locked. Perhaps he had been conscious of it all this time, as the means of escape, but some sordid impulse – be it mere curiosity – had suppressed the thought. He could leave. Why was he still there?

  "I am going to leave now," he said. It was almost an appeal; it lacked conviction.

  "Marinus!" Hippolyta hissed, and he could almost see snakes fly from her head as he was rooted to the spot. "Do not leave me like this. Stay; comfort me," she said. Passion had robbed her of all deceit and sense of self-preservation. She opened herself to his scorn, and spoke like a child in her simplicity.

  "I have already lost, do you understand? I am yours already, but if you walk out now, Hippolyta is no more. She has already died to honour, let her live for herself, for your love!"

  But it was no use. Her physical and psychic charms – the wiles of a seductress – had been melted away by her passion, and where she had set Marinus's senses on fire just moments ago, now she doused them in cold water with her pathetic pleading. He was no longer captivated by a lithe and voluptuous presence, but looking down at a grovelling woman, who looked all the more pitiable in her semi-nakedness. The night-dress did not cover her shame.

  "I am sorry," Marinus said, and he meant it. He walked out of the room.

  A stifled cry of anguish sounded out behind him, but he kept moving. That was, until a sight on the landing stopped him dead in his tracks.