Marsyas stopped and his face grew ashen. He saw Lydia again, among the stones of the rabble, and murder leaped into his heart.
"Kill Eutychus!" he declared desperately.
"It would be fatal for Agrippa," she protested.
His hunted ideas turned then upon Cæsar. Suddenly he rushed back to Junia and seized her hands.
"Thou art close to Cæsar," he said rapidly and with great supplication in his voice, "and thou art in Cæsar's favor! Beseech him and right Agrippa's mistakes, I implore thee! Help me, Junia! Be my right arm! Promise me thine intercession!"
Her face suffused, and she waited a moment before she could trust her voice.
"For thy sake, Marsyas," she answered. "I give thee my word!"
He pressed her hands to his lips and ran out of the house. She dropped back on her couch and put her fingers to her temples.
"Save Agrippa, to kill Saul, to save Lydia, for this Judean vestal's sake?" she speculated to herself. "And where doth Junia profit? Ah! I shall get him in debt, and extort mine own price! Jew or Gentile, he will not think it exorbitant, for under it all, he is a man! But to Tusculum!"
She clapped her hands and ordered her litter.