He looked up. Two women were standing before him.
"I seek Amaryllis, the Seleucid," he said, recovering himself.
"I am she," the Greek said, stepping forward.
"Thou entertainest Laodice, daughter of Costobarus of Ascalon?" he
added.
The Greek bowed.
"I would see her," he said bluntly.
Amaryllis signed to the woman at her side.
"This is she," she said simply.
The Maccabee looked quickly at the woman. After his close
communication with the beautiful girl for whom his heart warmed as it
had never done before, he was instantly aware of an immense contrast
between her and the woman who had been introduced to him at that
moment. They were both Jewesses; both were beautiful, each in her own
way; both appeared intelligent and winsome. But he loved the girl, and
this woman stood in the way of that love. Therefore her charms were
nullified; her latent faults intensified; all in all she repelled him
because she was an obstacle.
The injustice in his feelings toward her did not occur to him. He was
angry because she had come; he hated her for her stateliness; he found
himself looking for defects in her and belittling her undeniable
graces. Confused and for the moment without plan, he looked at her
frowning, and with cold astonishment the woman gazed back at him.
"Thou art Laodice, daughter of Costobarus?" he asked, to gain time.
She inclined her head.
"When--when dost thou expect Philadelphus?" he asked next.
"Why do you ask?" she parried.
"I--I have a message for him," he essayed finally. "Is he here?"
"Tell me, who art thou?" the woman asked pointedly.
A vision of the girl, flushed and trembling with pleasure at sight of
him, flashed with poignant effect upon him at that moment. The warmth
and softness of her hands under the pressure of his happy lips was
still with him. It would be infidelity to his own feelings to renounce
her then. It was becoming a physical impossibility for him to accept
this other woman.
He hesitated and reddened. An old subterfuge occurred to him at a
desperate minute.
"I--I am Hesper--of Ephesus," he essayed.
"What is thy business with Philadelphus?" the woman persisted.
Again the Maccabee floundered. It had been easy to invent a story to
keep the woman he loved from discovering that he was a married man,
but the point in question was different. Now, filled with dismay and
indignation, apprehension and reluctance, his fertile mind failed him
at the moment of its greatest need.
And the eyes of the Greek, filling with suspicion and intense
interest, rested upon him.
"I asked," the actress repeated calmly, "thy business with
Philadelphus."
At that instant a tremendous shock shook the house to its foundations;
the hanging lamps lurched; the exedra jarred and in an instant several
of the servants appeared at various openings into passages. Before any
of the group could stir, a second thunderous shock sent a tremor over
the room, and a fragment of marble detached from a support overhead
and dropped to the pavement.