The City of Delight

"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.