Philammon looked up in the gaoler’s face with a dim half-comprehension of his meaning.
‘Do you hear?’ cried the man with a curse. ‘You are free. Jump up, or I shut the door again, and your one chance is over.’
‘Did she dance Venus Anadyomene?’
‘She! Who?’
‘My sister! Pelagia!’
‘Heaven only knows what she has not danced in her time! But they say she dances to-day once more. Quick! out, or I shall not be ready in time for the sports. They begin an hour hence. Free admission into the theatre to-day for all—rogues and honest men, Christians and heathens—Curse the boy! he’s as mad as ever.’
So indeed Philammon seemed; for, springing suddenly to his feet, he rushed out past the gaoler, upsetting him into the corridor, and fled wildly from the prison among the crowd of liberated ruffians, ran from the prison home, from home to the baths, from the baths to the theatre, and was soon pushing his way, regardless of etiquette, towards the lower tiers of benches, in order, he hardly knew why, to place himself as near as possible to the very sight which he dreaded and abhorred.
As fate would have it, the passage by which he had entered opened close to the Prefect’s chair of state, where sat Orestes, gorgeous in his robes of office, and by him—to Philammon’s surprise and horror—Hypatia herself.
More beautiful than ever, her forehead sparkling, like Juno’s own, with a lofty tiara of jewels, her white Ionic robe half hidden by a crimson shawl, there sat the vestal, the philosopher. What did she there? But the boy’s eager eyes, accustomed but too well to note every light and shade of feeling which crossed that face, saw in a moment how wan and haggard was its expression. She wore a look of constraint, of half-terrified self-resolve, as of a martyr: and yet not an undoubting martyr; for as Orestes turned his head at the stir of Philammon’s intrusion, and flashing with anger at the sight, motioned him fiercely back, Hypatia turned too, and as her eyes met her pupil’s she blushed crimson, and started, and seemed in act to motion him back also; and then, recollecting herself, whispered something to Orestes which quieted his wrath, and composed herself, or rather sank into her place again, as one who was determined to abide the worst.
A knot of gay young gentlemen, Philammon’s fellow-students, pulled him down among them, with welcome and laughter; and before he could collect his thoughts, the curtain in front of the stage had fallen, and the sport began.