Withal her presence intimated tremendous primal charm and the mystery of undiscovered potentialities.

And she was royal! No mere upstart of an impostor could have assumed that perfect hauteur, that patrician bearing.
But the pretended Philadelphus was not impressed by this beauty.
"How now, Salome ?" he demanded.

"What play is this ?" The Ephesian actress motioned toward the shittim-wood casket.
"For that," she said calmly.
Her voice became, instantly, her foremost charm.

It was a deep voice; the profoundest contralto with an illimitable strength in suggestion.
"Where is--what is that ?" "Two hundred talents." Philadelphus took a step toward her.
"What!" he exclaimed evilly.

"Whose two hundred talents ?" "Mine." There was silence in which the man's fingers bent, as if he felt her throat between them.