"What have you to offer them in their hope of a Messiah?" she said

pointedly.

"Messiah! What else is preached in the Temple but the Messiah, or in

the proseuchae or the streets or on the walls? We eat, drink, sleep,

fight, buy, sell, rob or restore in the name of the Messiah! They are

surfeited with religion."

"Are they?" she asked sententiously. "But you haven't given them a

Messiah."

He looked at her without comprehending.

"You have a mad city here; you can not reason with it; indulge it,

then, as you indulge your lunatics," she suggested.

He shook his head, smiling that he did not understand her. She turned

again to Seraiah.

"Watch him," she insisted. "He possesses me."

After a long silence in which John trifled with his wine, she prepared

to rise.

"Send me the roll of the law," the woman said suddenly.

"Posthumus shall bring it. He is another lunatic. Experiment with him

and learn how I shall act toward the city."

"Well said," she averred; "and I will see your Idumeans. Is it proper

for me to appear in the Temple?"

The Gischalan's eyes flashed a sudden elation and delight. He bent low

and kissed her hand.

"And I will fetch somewhat which will divert us," she added and was

gone.

When a few moments later John passed again into the Greek's apartment,

Amaryllis entered from an inner corridor. Before she spoke to the

master of the house she addressed a servant who had been a moment

before summoned.

"Send hither my guest."

"The stranger?" John asked. "Is she still with you?"

"I mean to add her to my household, if you will," she explained.

"Keep her or dismiss her at your pleasure."

"It shall be for my pleasure. She has a charm that besets me. It will

be entertainment to discover her history."

"I see no mystery in her. It is plain enough that there is between her

and this married Philadelphus some cause for her coming. His wife is

much more engaging."

She sighed and dropped into her ivory chair, pushed back the locks of

fair hair that had loosened from their fillet and waited languidly.

John studied her critically. In the last hour the slowly dissolving

bond between them seemed to have vanished, wholly, at once.

"O Queen of Kings," he said, "art thou lonely in this mad place?"

"I have found diversion," she answered.

"With these new guests?"

"With these new guests. Observe them; there are a pair of lovers among

them, mersed in difficulty, hampering themselves, multiplying sorrow

and sure to accomplish the same end as if they had proceeded happily."

"Interested no longer in thine own passion? Alas, my Amaryllis, that

love is dead that is interested no longer in itself."




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