"Lydia!" Marsyas exclaimed.
"And I tell thee, my Lord Agrippa," the alabarch continued, by this time a picture of refined indignation, "at this very hour I was brought face to face with a hard decision between my daughter and thy wife!"
Marsyas turned toward Cla.s.sicus, but the storm of denunciation that leaped to his lips was checked. What should he win for his exposure of Cla.s.sicus, but scorn from Lydia, and a misconstruction of his motive?
Atavistic ferocity glittered in Agrippa"s eyes.
"It is my turn!" he brought out between clenched teeth, "and I have a long score, a long score with Flaccus! Where is my lady? Let her be brought!"
Lydia broke in before the alabarch could answer.
"In hiding!" she answered quickly, and Marsyas fancied that she feared a too explicit answer from her father. Before whom was she afraid to disclose the princess" refuge, if not Cla.s.sicus?
"Take four of my praetorians, then," Agrippa commanded, "and lead me to her hiding-place!"
The alabarch bowed and summoned servants.
"Have we, then, delivered this house of peril?" Marsyas asked of Agrippa.
"Flaccus," said Cla.s.sicus, speaking for the first time, "may feed his thirst for revenge!"
"Get but my lady, first!" Agrippa insisted. "Flaccus hath played and lost! He shall pay his forfeit!"
The servants were ready with the alabarch"s cloak; the porter announced chariots waiting, and in an incredibly short time, Marsyas was alone with Lydia and Cla.s.sicus, in the presiding-room.
"I shall return to the ship and prepare it for voyage," Marsyas said, in the silence that instantly fell. "Since I return to Judea with the King, perchance I should say farewell!"
Lydia"s lips parted, and her miserable eyes turned away from him.
"Await my father"s return," she said in a low voice,
"Hath he far to go?" he asked.
"Yes--far!"
Cla.s.sicus waited serenely for Marsyas" answer. In that composure Marsyas read unconcern, which the Essene interpreted as hopelessness for his own cause.
"So long as we abide in Egypt, we are a peril," he replied. "Even now we have delayed too long!"
He extended his hand to Lydia, and slowly, she put her own into it.
The touch of the small fingers played too strongly upon his self-control. He released them hurriedly and strode toward the vestibule.
But at the threshold, indecision and astonishment and acute realization of the meaning of the thing he was doing seized him. He whirled about.
Cla.s.sicus stood beneath the cl.u.s.ter of lamps, his face alight with triumphant superciliousness. Even under Marsyas" eye the expression did not alter. Lydia seemed to have shrunk; her hands clasped before her were wrung about each other in an agony of restraint, but the pitiful appeal in her eyes was all that Marsyas saw.
In an instant he was again at her side, his heart speaking in his face.
"Thou wearest yet the free locks of maidenhood," he said, in a voice so smooth and low that it chilled her, "perchance thou wilt tell me ere I depart if thou art to marry--this man?"
For a moment there was silence; Marsyas heard his mad heart beating, but if Cla.s.sicus felt apprehension, there was no display of it on his face. Then Lydia raised her head.
"No," she said, in a voice barely audible.
Marsyas turned upon Cla.s.sicus, and between the two there pa.s.sed the silent communication of men who wholly understand each other. Then Cla.s.sicus took up his kerchief, and, with a smile and a wave of his hand, walked out of the presiding-room.
But Lydia was out of reach of Marsyas" arms when he turned to her.
Crying and afraid, she motioned him back as he pressed toward her.
He stopped.
"Am I still unacceptable to thee, Lydia?" he asked.
"O Marsyas, thou returnest in the same spirit as thou didst depart from me--unchanged, unchanged! But striving to change--for my sake! Do not so, for me! Not for me!"
The grief and pleading in the black eyes that rested upon her changed slowly. Rebuffed and stung he threw up his head.
"Better the old Essenic shape in which I was bound against thee and thou against me?" he said bitterly. "So! The Essenes seem not to be wrong in their teaching of distrust in women!"
If he expected her to retort, the compa.s.sion and gentleness in her answer surprised him.
"Not that, my Marsyas," she said, coming nearer to him in her earnestness. "But change does not consist in the raiment thou wearest, nor in the claim to be altered. Thou canst not in truth believe that I have done right! Thou forgivest me for thy love"s sake, but thy intelligence is no less critical! I can not, will not put away the faith of the Master; I can not regret the spirit of the deed I did for their sake. And between us it is as it was the night I sent thee from me, so long ago!"
"But I have changed," he protested hastily. "The world hath taught me much: I can understand; I can extenuate greater errors--I have done so; believe me, it is only for thy sake--"
"But canst thou wholly acquit me--wholly justify me, Marsyas?"
He looked at her with pleading in his eyes, and made no answer.
"No man should wed or worship with a single doubt," she said.
Fearing more than he dared confess to himself, he caught her hands and would not let her leave him.
"Lydia, I have not had the portion which G.o.d and women allot to most men," he said almost piteously. "There are delights that should be mine by right, but they are denied me! Other men have their dreams, their moments of tender preoccupation. They can live again through hours between only themselves and one other. They can feel again the touches of a woman"s hand upon them, the warmth of her cheek and the love in her kiss. No matter the evil, the sorrows that follow, these things are theirs, to hold in memory! No matter the time or the place, they can summon it all from a song, drink it from a goblet of wine, or breathe it in from a flower! It is twice living it; once, in the actuality; again, in the dream! But I--I have nothing! My teaching did not permit me to look forward to such a thing--and thou, Lydia--Lydia, thou dost not permit me to look back upon it!"
Her eyes filled with tears, and a rush of tender words trembled on her lips. His gaze, quickened by longing for the thing these signs typified, caught the softening in her young face. He seized upon the hope that it gave him.
"Dost thou love me, Lydia?" he asked.
"I love thee, Marsyas."
He drew her to him, put his arms about her and pressed her to his breast. She did not resist him, for she was tired of contention with herself, tired of distress, afraid of the menace the future showed her, and withal fainting in hope. She dropped her head on his shoulder, with her face turned up to him. Marsyas" soul filled to the full with subdued, bewildering emotions. It was not the first time he had held this sweet child-woman in his arms, but fear, tumult, impetuousness and protest had claimed preeminence in his thoughts before. Now in the quiet and shelter of the alabarch"s deserted presiding-room, he found new experience, new feelings. Under the low light of the cl.u.s.tered lamp, he looked down on the face turned to him, smoothed with soft touches the long, delicate black brows; pa.s.sed light fingers over the bloom of her cheek and saw the faint rose color come again in the white lines the little pressure made; put back the loose curl fallen before her perfect ear and marveled at its silkiness; watched the quiet palpitation in the milk-white throat--sensed, somehow, the repose in herself, the command, even in this momentary surrender, the divinity in her womanliness. He was ashamed of his distrust, startled at his new sensations.
Perhaps she saw the pa.s.sing of feeling over his face, for she stirred and would have raised herself, but the movement brought him back to reality, and a fiercer rebellion against it.
"Nay, nay, Lydia; I love thee! It is my one virtue; my sinful soul hath been married to thee these many strange months. Thou art become a necessity to my life, as needful as bread and drink, as blood and breath! Thou art the essential salt in my veins--the world to me!
Nay, more! Thou art love, for world is a word with boundaries! I have striven for thy sake and I have not failed. I am able now to obtain the quieting of thy chief enemy, the refreshment of the starved heart in me, thirsting for revenge, and of our own security henceforward in the world. Yet, I am not going to Judea with Agrippa. I abide here with thee in Alexandria, until I have won the immediate safety of thy body and thy soul!"
She strove to stop him in his resolution, but he kissed her, and, leading her to the foot of the well-remembered stairs, whispered his good night.