The City of Delight

"What, then, am I to do?" Laodice cried with increasing alarm.

Amaryllis shrugged her shoulders.

"I can advise with John," she said. "Doubtless he will allow you to

remain here until you can provide yourself with other shelter."

Laodice heard this cold sentence with a chill of fear that was new to

her. Faint pictures of hunger and violence, terrifying in the extreme,

confronted her. Yet not any of them frightened her more than the

offered favor of the Gischalan. Her indignation at the woman who had

supplanted her swept over her with a reflexive flush of heat.

"God of my fathers, judge her in her lies, and pour the fire of Thy

wrath upon her!" she exclaimed vehemently.

Amaryllis gazed curiously at the girl. In her soul, she asked herself

if there might not be unsounded depths of fierceness in this nature

which she ought not to stir up.

"Thou hast hope," she said tactfully. "She hath no such beauty as

thine!"

"Nothing but my proofs!" Laodice broke in.

"And Philadelphus is a young man."

"Rejecting her only because I am fairer than she! He is no just man!"

Laodice cried hotly.

"Softly, child," the Greek said, smiling; "thou hast said that he is

thy husband."

Laodice turned away, her brain whirling with anger, fear and shame.

"Well?" said the Greek coolly, after a silence.

"Where shall I go?" Laodice asked.

"Thou hast been too tenderly nurtured to go into the streets. I shall

ask John to shelter thee until thou canst care for thyself."

Laodice looked at her without understanding.

"Thou canst not stay here for long because the wife to Philadelphus is

in a way a power in my house and she will not suffer it. But never

fear; Jerusalem is not yet so far gone that it would not enjoy a

pretty stranger."

The curious sense of indignation that possessed Laodice was purely

instinctive. Her mind could not sense the actual insult in the Greek's

words.

"I would advise you to be kind to Philadelphus."

"But, but--" Laodice cried, struggling with tears and shame, "he has

this day offered insult to his own marriage with me, by asking that I

live in shame with him till it could be proved that I am his wife!"

The Greek's smile did not change.

"If we weigh all the unpleasantness of wedded life in too delicate a

balance, my friend, I fear there would be little, indeed, that would

escape condemnation as humiliating."

Laodice raised her scarlet face to look in wonder at the Greek. The

cold smiling lips dismayed her for a moment.

"And thou seest no shame in this?" she faltered.

"Thou sayest he is thy husband; why resent it?"

"Dost thou not see--see that--what am I but a shameless woman, if I

live with him, though I be married to him thrice over!"