"O Junia, how can I?" he demanded impatiently.
"Nay, but I am asking payment of the debt thou confessest to me!"
"Help me yet in this danger of Classicus, and I shall be thy slave!"
She arose and approached very close to him. Her face was flushing, her hands were outstretched. He took them because they were offered. "Marsyas," she whispered, her brilliant eyes searching his face, "I shall not cease to be thy confederate, but I would be more!"
With a little wrench she freed her hands from his and drew a packet from the folds of silk over her breast.
"See! I have here thy letter, which Herod brought and bitterly reproached me for mine enchantment of thee. And I kept it, till this hour!"
She put into his hands the scorched and broken letter that he had written to Lydia and had believed that he had destroyed so long before. While he looked at it, stupefied with astonishment, she slipped her arms about his neck.
"I do not ask thee to marry me," she whispered, a little laugh rippling her breath. "Eros does not summon the law to make his sway effective. For thou art an Essene, by repute, and no man need surrender his reputation for his character. Wherefore, though ten thousand dread penalties bound thee to celibacy, they do not dull thine eyes nor make thy cheeks less crimson! Be an Essene, or a Jew, Cæsar or a slave—that can not alter thy charm! And I shall not quibble, so thou lovest me!"
Marsyas stood still while he searched her changing face. It was not a new experience for him who had brought picturesque beauty into Rome, but the source was different, the result more grave. On this occasion the seductive enumeration of his good looks awakened in him something which was affronted; whatever thing it was, it possessed an intelligence which comprehended before his brain grew furious, and, flinging itself upon his soul, buffeted it into sensitiveness.
With a rush of rage, he understood all that her act had accomplished for him.