The sudden recurrence to that past tragedy and the unfolding of his recognition fairly swept Laodice off her feet with shock and alarm. If he noted her feeling, he was sorry he had not succeeded in comforting her with a promise of reunion with her beloved in that other land. He took away his tremulous hand from her hair.
Leaving her transfixed with all he had said, he moved painfully away, stiffened by long sitting while he discoursed.
Chapter XIX
THE FALSE PROPHET
It was a different Amaryllis that the pretended Philadelphus faced now, from the one who had welcomed him on his arrival in Jerusalem months ago. Then she had been so cold and self-contained that it would have been effrontery to discuss her hopes with her. Now, with the avarice of love in her eyes, with wishfulness and defeat making their sorry signs on her face, she was a creature that even the humblest would have longed to help.
Philadelphus sat opposite her in the ivory chair which was hers by right. She sat in the exedra and listened eagerly to the things he said with her finger-tips on her lips and her eyes gazing from under her brow as her head drooped.
She had ceased long ago to debate idly on the actual identity of the man who had called himself Hesper of Ephesus. There was another question that absorbed her. Of late, it had been brought home to her that the charm of Laodice for the stranger from Ephesus, to whom the Greek knew the girl had fled, had been her purity. Why should it matter so much about virtue? she had asked herself. Why should it weigh so immeasurably more than the noble gifts of wit and beauty and strength and charm? Behold, she was wise enough to educate a barbarous nation, beautiful enough to bewitch potentates–for a time–strong enough to take a city; yet Hesper, who best of all could appreciate the value of these things, had turned from her to Laodice, who was merely chaste.
The greater part of the jealous and bitter passion that had shaken her then was dumb regret that the measure of charm was so irrational–and that she had not believed in it, in time, in time!
Now, however, since she had become convinced that Laodice had gone to Hesper for refuge, hope had awakened in her, but so filled with uncertainty and lack of confidence in another's weakness that it was little more than a torture to her.
If Laodice had gone to this winsome stranger, either claiming to be the wife of Philadelphus or acknowledging the imposture, there was now no difference between Laodice and herself!