Junia sitting next to Marsyas turned to him.
"So thou wilt follow Flora?" she asked.
"No."
"Why?" she insisted, smiling. "Thou must go to Rome, where Flora runs every day. Wilt thou turn thy back upon Egypt's joy and see only Italy's?"
"Is Rome so much worse than Alexandria?"
"Not worse; only more pronounced. There is more of Rome; the world gets its impulse there. So much is done; so many are doing. And, by the caprice of the Destinies, thou art to see Rome more than commonly employed."
"How?" he asked. By this time, the others were talking and the two spoke unheard together.
"Hist! I tell it under my breath, because the noble proconsul is burdened with the great responsibility of declaring the emperor's deathlessness, and I would not contradict him aloud. But Tiberius is old, old—and Rome casts about for his successor. But chance hath it that interest hath uncoupled the two eyes so that the singleness of sight is divided. 'Look right,' saith one; 'look left,' saith the other, and each looking his own way reviles his fellow and creates disturbance in the head. But it behooves thee, gentle Jew, to bid thine eyes contemplate Tiberius, to do oriental obeisance and say as the Persians say; 'O King, live for ever!"
"But yesterday, thou didst cast a kindly light over the world's hardness. Tear it not away thus soon and frighten me with the fierce power against which I must shortly go and demand tribute," he protested lightly.
She took down her arms, clasped back of her head, to look at him.