He smiled and let his lazy glance slip over her, but he made no response.
"O Philadelphus," she said to him, "how you affront opportunity!"
"There are more captivating things than such opportunity. I have known from the beginning that there was nothing here."
She looked at him with unquiet eyes. Why, then, had he written so confidently to her father, if he had not believed in the hope for Judea?
"From the beginning?" she repeated with inquiry. "You wrote my father from Cæsarea–"
"Your father?" he repeated, smiling with insinuation.
"My father!"
"Who is your father?" he asked.
She turned away from him and walked to the other end of the garden. He had never meant to aspire to the Judean throne! He had simply written so determinedly to Costobarus, that the merchant of Ascalon would have no hesitancy in giving him two hundred talents! In these past days, she had learned enough that was blameworthy in this Philadelphus to make him more than despicable in her eyes. Again, as hourly since the last interview in the depression in the hills beyond the well, the fine bigness of that lovable companion of his, that had vanished for all time from her life, rose in radiant contrast. She turned back to her husband, with the pallor of longing and homesickness in her face.
"Does this other woman see no fault in this, your idleness?" she demanded.