"Who is this, sir?" she asked of Philadelphus.
"That," said Philadelphus evenly, to the actress, "is Laodice,
daughter of Costobarus."
"I do not understand," the actress said disgustedly. "You are clumsy,
Philadelphus, when you are playful. If this is all, I shall return to
my chamber."
She rose, but Laodice sprang into her path.
"Hold!" she cried. "Philadelphus, hast thou accepted this woman
without proofs?"
Philadelphus smiled and shook his head.
"And by the by," he asked, "what proof have you?"
Up to that moment Laodice had burned with confident rage, feeling
that, by force of the justice of her cause, she might overthrow this
preposterous villainy, but at Philadelphus' question she suddenly
chilled and blanched and shrank back. A new and supreme disadvantage
of her loss presented itself to her at last. She could not prove her
identity!
Meanwhile, seeing Laodice falter, the woman's lip curled.
"Weak! Very weak, Philadelphus," she said. "You must invent something
better. The success of a jest is all that pardons a jester."
"She robbed me!" Laodice panted impotently. "Robbed me, after my
father had given her refuge!"
"Of what?" the Greek asked.
"My proofs--and two hundred talents!"
"Lady," the actress said to Amaryllis, "my husband's emissary, Aquila,
was a pagan. He had with him, on our journey, this woman and her old
deformed father who fled when the plague broke out among us. She
hoped, I surmise, that we should all die on the way. Even Samson gave
up secrets to Delilah, and this Aquila was no better than Samson."
Oriental fury fulminated in the eyes of Laodice. Philadelphus, fearing
that she was about to spring at the throat of her traducer, sprang
between the two women. In his eyes shone immense admiration at that
moment.
There was an instant of critical silence. Then Laodice drew herself up
with a sudden accession of strength.
"Madam," she said coldly to Amaryllis, "with-hold thy judgment a few
days. I shall send my servant back to Ascalon for other proof. He
can go safely, for he has had the plague."
Philadelphus started; the actress flinched.
"Friend," Philadelphus said in his smooth way, "I came upon this woman
by the wayside in the hills. I and a wayfarer cast a coin for
possession of her--and the other man won. Give thyself no concern."
Laodice flung her hands over her face and shrank in an agony of shame
down upon the exedra. Amaryllis looked down on her bowed head.
"Is it true?" she asked. After a moment Laodice raised herself.
"God of Israel," she said in a low voice, "how hast Thy servant
deserved these things!"
There was a space of silence, in which the two impostors turned
together and talking between themselves of anything but the recent
interview walked out of the chamber.