A vision of the girl, flushed and trembling with pleasure at sight of him, flashed with poignant effect upon him at that moment. The warmth and softness of her hands under the pressure of his happy lips was still with him. It would be infidelity to his own feelings to renounce her then. It was becoming a physical impossibility for him to accept this other woman.
He hesitated and reddened. An old subterfuge occurred to him at a desperate minute.
"I–I am Hesper–of Ephesus," he essayed.
"What is thy business with Philadelphus?" the woman persisted.
Again the Maccabee floundered. It had been easy to invent a story to keep the woman he loved from discovering that he was a married man, but the point in question was different. Now, filled with dismay and indignation, apprehension and reluctance, his fertile mind failed him at the moment of its greatest need.
And the eyes of the Greek, filling with suspicion and intense interest, rested upon him.
"I asked," the actress repeated calmly, "thy business with Philadelphus."
At that instant a tremendous shock shook the house to its foundations; the hanging lamps lurched; the exedra jarred and in an instant several of the servants appeared at various openings into passages. Before any of the group could stir, a second thunderous shock sent a tremor over the room, and a fragment of marble detached from a support overhead and dropped to the pavement.
"It is an attack!" Amaryllis cried.
"On this house?" Salome demanded.