"Thou canst not know what service thou hast done us by that promise," she said. "It is more than the youth's security; it means my husband's success. For in this young man, we have found Fortune itself!"
The proconsul made no answer, for his gray-brown eyes flickered suddenly as if a candle had been moved close by them.
CHAPTER X
FLACCUS WORKS A COMPLEXITY
Near sunset the following day the alabarch appeared in the porch of the proconsul's mansion,—an incident which would speedily have spread wildly over the Brucheum had not the shrewd Lysimachus come in Roman dress, unostentatiously and hidden by the dusk. The slave who conducted the visitor to the master's presence was suspicious, but he did not lapse from courtesy. If he had prejudices they had to await a popular uproar for expression, and popular uproars at present against the Jews were manifestly in disfavor with the proconsul.
Flaccus received the alabarch in the great gloom of his atrium. The torches had not been lighted, the cancelli admitted only dusk. The shadowy shape of the proconsul, relaxed in his curule, alone and immovable, thus surrounded by meditative atmosphere, suddenly appealed to the alabarch as out of harmony with the legate's blunt nature.
As the Jew drew near, he saw rolls and parcels of linen and parchment, petitions and memorials, scattered about on the pavement, as if the Roman had let them roll off his table or drop from his hand unconsciously. His elbow rested on the ivory arm of his curule, his cheek on his clenched hand. The undimmed gaze of the Jewish magistrate detected lines in the hard face that he had never seen before.
But Flaccus stirred and drew himself up to attention.
"Come up, Lysimachus," he said. "There is a chair here, for thee."