That long graceful figure stretched on the sand was speaking. What was
it in his voice that drew her so mightily from any terror that
possessed her at any time?
"Sit down, sit down! I have more to say," he was urging her.
She obeyed him numbly.
"He gets worse as he approaches the city. I think I ought to leave
him. It will not be safe to be near him when his moneyed lady claims
him for her own!"
"She--she--" Laodice burst out, "is--may be such a woman!"
"Such a woman as you! No; she will not be. That is what makes him bad.
And now that I bethink me, perhaps it is just as well that you proceed
to Jerusalem. He may comfort himself with a sight of you, now and
then."
"I? I comfort him?" she exclaimed.
"By my soul I know it! What blunders Fortune makes in bestowing wives!
Perchance your husband could have got on as well without so radiant a
spouse, while my poor beauty-loving friend must needs be paired with
a--Alas! there is too much marrying in this world!"
There was a ring of genuine dejection in his voice and when she looked
down at him, she saw that his eyes were larger and more sorrowful than
she believed they could be. He was hurting himself with his own
deceit. She looked away hastily, frightened at the sudden tenderness
that his pathetic gaze had wakened in her.
"Alas!" he went on. "The greatest sacrifice and the frequentest in
this world of cross-purposes never gets into poetry. I--" he halted a
moment and looked away, "I ought to be sorry for her, too. She is not
getting the best of men."
"Verily!" she exclaimed impulsively.
He whirled his head toward her, stared; then with a flash of intense
expression in his eyes burst into a ringing laugh that shook him from
head to foot. He flung out his hand and catching hers passed it across
his lips without kissing it, and let it go before he regained
composure enough to speak.
"No! Not a good man! Verily! But hath he no cause to be delinquent?"
"No!" she said stubbornly. "He has judged her without seeing her,
when, by your own words, he expects her to bring him fortune and
position. What is he bringing her?"
The Maccabee looked at her thoughtfully before he answered.
"Nothing! Not even his heart!" he vowed.
Laodice caught her breath in an agony of indignation and distress.
"He does not in any way deserve--" she stopped precipitately. She was
about to add "the great fortune he is to get," when she realized that
she was taking this husband nothing--not even her own heart. She went
on, for the first time a little glad that she was penniless.