"Of thyself, I would hear more and oftener. Await not the rising of a new rival to write to me. Fear not; I shall not ask to borrow money of thee—until thou hast wedded the Lysimachus.
"All thy friends in Jerusalem greet thee. Be happy and be fortunate. Thy friend,
"PHILIP OF JERUSALEM."
At this point Classicus composedly doubled the parchment, broke it lengthwise and cross-wise and clapped his hands for a slave. A Hebrew bondman appeared.
"This for the ovens," said Classicus, handing it to him.
When the servant disappeared, the philosopher descended into his house and was dressed for a visit. An hour before the noon rest, he appeared in the garden of the alabarch.
There he found Lydia and Junia, Agrippa, Cypros, the alabarch and Flaccus, idly discussing the day's opening of the Feast of Flora. He had given and received greetings and merged his interests in the subject, when Marsyas appeared in the colonnade. He had taken off the kerchief usually worn about the head, and carried it on his arm. As he passed the spare old alabarch, the heavy purple proconsul and the exquisite Herod, not one of the guests there gathered but made successive comparisons between him and the others. Junia gazed at him steadily, under half-closed lids, but Lydia followed him with a look, half-sorrowful, half-happy, and wholly involuntary.
Cypros glanced at his flushed forehead and damp hair.
"Hast thou been into the city?" she asked with sweet solicitude.
"To the harbor-master," he answered, "I have been making ready thy lord's ship."