‘Come with me, young man,’ said he, laying his hand kindly enough on Philammon’s shoulder.... ‘The rest of this matter you and I can settle;’ and Philammon followed him, not daring to look back at Hypatia, while the whole room swam before his eyes.
‘So, so I hear you have been saying rude things to my daughter. Well, she has forgiven you—’
‘Has she?’ asked the young monk, with an eager start.
‘Ah! you may well look astonished. But I forgive you too. It is lucky for you, however, that I did not hear you, or else, old man as I am, I can’t say what I might not have done. Ah! you little know, you little know what she is.—and the old pedant’s eyes kindled with loving pride. ‘May the gods give you some day such a daughter!—that is, if you learn to deserve it—as virtuous as she is wise, as wise as she is beautiful. Truly they have repaid me for my labours in their service. Look, young man! little as you merit it, here is a pledge of your forgiveness, such as the richest and noblest in Alexandria are glad to purchase with many an ounce of gold—a ticket of free admission to all her lectures henceforth! Now go; you have been favoured beyond your deserts, and should learn that the philosopher can practise what the Christian only preaches, and return good for evil.’ And he put into Philammon’s hand a slip of paper, and bid one of the secretaries show him to the outer door.
The youths looked up at him from their writing as he passed, with faces of surprise and awe, and evidently thinking no more about the absurdity of his sheepskin and his tanned complexion; and he went out with a stunned, confused feeling, as of one who, by a desperate leap, has plunged into a new world. He tried to feel content; but he dare not. All before him was anxiety, uncertainty. He had cut himself adrift; he was on the great stream. Whither would it lead him? Well—was it not the great stream? Had not all mankind, for all the ages, been floating on it? Or was it but a desert-river, dwindling away beneath the fiery sun, destined to lose itself a few miles on, among the arid sands? Were Arsenius and the faith of his childhood right? And was the Old World coming speedily to its death-throe, and the Kingdom of God at hand? Or was Cyril right, and the Church Catholic appointed to spread, and conquer, and destroy, and rebuild, till the kingdoms of this world had become the kingdoms of God and of His Christ! If so, what use in this old knowledge which he craved? And yet, if the day of the destruction of all things were at hand, and the times destined to become worse and not better, till the end-how could that be?....
‘What news?’ asked the little porter, who had been waiting for him at the door all the while. ‘What news, O favourite of the gods!’
‘I will lodge with you, and labour with you. Ask me no more at present. I am—I am—
‘Those who descended into the Cave of Trophonius, and beheld the unspeakable, remained astonished for three days, my young friend—and so will you!’ And they went forth together to earn their bread.
But what is Hypatia doing all this while, upon that cloudy Olympus, where she sits enshrined far above the noise and struggle of man and his work-day world?
She is sitting again, with her manuscripts open before her; but she is thinking of the young monk, not of them.