A woman had just sent away from her, forever, the bravest man in all the world--those were Phyllis' words--a king of men--the one man who loved her and whom she loved.

She had pretended to him that she was subject to the influences of religion, of honor, of duty! What hypocrisy! They knew it, those leering creatures--they knew that she cared nothing for religion, that she regarded honor and duty as words of no meaning when such words as love and devotion were in the air.
She looked at the satyr masks, and had anyone been present in the room, that one would have seen that her lovely face became gradually distorted until the expression it wore was precisely the same as that upon the masks--an expression that had its audible equivalent in the laugh which broke from her.
She lay back on her broad cushions.

One of the strands of her splendid hair had become loose, and after coiling over half a yard of the brocaded silk of a cushion, twisted its way down to the floor.

She lay back, pointing one finger at the face on the vase and laughing that satyr-laugh.
"We know--we know--we know!" she cried, and her voice was like that of a drunken woman.

"We know all--you and I--we know the hypocrisy--the pretense of religion--of honor--duty--a husband! Ah, a husband! that is the funniest of all--that husband! We know how little we care for them all." She continued laughing until her cushion slipped from under her head.
She half rose to straighten it, and at that instant she caught a glimpse of her face in the center silvered panel of the Venetian mirror.