"And my father?" she asked in a low voice.
"Especially commended to Cæsar's favor! The black days for the Alexandrian Jews are over, unless Caligula force upon them his pet madness that he is a god and amenable to worship."
"Mad, at last!" Marsyas exclaimed.
"Never otherwise," Agrippa answered. "I hear that he has proclaimed Junia to be Athor, and hath set up a white cow in a temple to be propitiated in the wanton's name!"
Marsyas looked at the downcast lashes of Lydia and loved her for the silence she kept.
"Will she—be—empress?" Cypros faltered, in womanly fear of some unknown evil.
Agrippa laughed and dropped his hand meaningly on Marsyas' arm.
"If she should be, here is Marsyas yet to protect me!" he said. But Marsyas did not smile.
"What!" Agrippa cried; "still an Essene?"
"No," said Marsyas, "but the Lord forfend that the woman should ever become Augusta!"