Now the alabarch laughed. "I am not so sure. Is it native in a Herod to love his wife so well? It would be a bad mortgage for me to foreclose—one cast-off female whose chief uses are for tears!"
"No, by Venus! She is too comely to play Dido. But try my plan, Alexander. It is well worth the experiment."
The alabarch arose and stepped down from the rostrum. "It—it is—" he hesitated. "But then, I should have them on my hands, under any circumstances."
He took a few more steps, and paused for thought.
"Well enough," he said finally, "we shall see."
With a motion of farewell to the proconsul, he passed out and disappeared.
Flaccus dropped back into his curule, and lapsed again into gloomy meditation. The night fell and obscured him. He seemed to be waiting, but not with marked impatience.
Again the atriensis bowed before him.
"A lady who says she was summoned," he said.
"Let her enter. And bid the lampadary light the torch, yonder, not here—and only one."