'How could he have had it but from your own lips ?' Marcian betook himself to his utmost dissimulation, and the talk of the next few minutes--on his part, deliberately provocative; on hers, recklessly vehement--instructed him in much that he had desired to learn.

It was made clear to him that a long combat of wills and desires had been in progress between the crafty courtesan and the half wily and the half brutal soldier, with a baffling of Heliodora's devices which would never have come to his knowledge but for this outbreak of rage.
How far the woman had gone in her lures, whether she had played her last stake, he could not even now determine; but he suspected that only such supreme defeat could account for the fury in which he beheld her.
Bessas, having (as was evident) heard the secret from Pelagius, might perchance have played the part of a lover vanquished by his passions, and then, after winning his end by pretence of treachery to the Emperor, had broken into scoffing revelation.

That were a triumph after the Thracian's heart.

Having read thus far in the past, Marcian had to turn anxious thought upon the future, for his position of seeming security could not long continue.

He bent himself to allay the wrath he had excited.