Cynthia, the wife of General Seron, wore an outer robe of blue silk. This was closely drawn about her person, so that the full proportions of bust and limb were revealed by the very device for their concealment. It was the boast of Seron that his spouse was the best-formed woman among the wives of the generals. Her costume showed that she was conscious of this pride of her husband, and inclined to show that it was fully warranted. Her attitude as she reclined was that of an Amazon, and would have been sufficient to warn away any assailant, even if he were not terrified at the tiny spear of silver which she held in her fingers, and which had fastened to her coiffure the hat, a flat disc of ornamented straw, that now lay in her lap.
The Princess Helena was radiant in the relics of nature's bountiful endowment, judiciously repaired by the newest arts of feminine fashion. If wax and rouge, pencil and pomade were her allies, they were in slyest ambush within unsuspected wrinkles, and gave out not so much as a stray freckle for a sign of the delusion. Her hair was thrown back from her forehead and temples, and banded with a triple fillet which gathered it up at the crown, whence it sprayed down in a shower of gold upon her alabaster neck. Her outer robe of white wool had been thrown back, and lay upon the couch, in seemingly careless, but really artistic, contrast with her purple chiton. This under-garment was gathered at the left shoulder within a gemmed clasp, loosely girded beneath the breasts, and open below, displaying her limb from foot to thigh.
Lydia, the wife of Menelaos, the High Priest, had reason for being more modestly covered, yet blazed in her green himation spangled with gold.
Deborah, the hostess, rivalled these beauties in the contrast of her purely oriental costume. Her black hair was covered with what seemed a solid helmet of gold, so many were the coins which made her cap. About her throat and falling low upon her bosom was a great necklace of rarest gems, which flashed in all the hues most prized by lapidaries, from the starry white of diamonds to the deepest blush of rubies. The pearls pendant from her ears touched her shoulders, and glowed like rivulets of light. Her inner garment was elaborately wrought with needlework, and partly covered with a yellow outer robe. Altogether the Jewess was a splendid vision of wealth and beauty, of which it is sufficient to say that it had already passed the favourable inspection of so great a connoisseur as her brother Glaucon.
In their conversation the women seem to have exhausted all themes of a purely human range—the faults of generals, from strategy to bow legs; the King's stud of horses and his harem; the statuary of Phidias and the flat-nosed gods of the Phœnicians; the epic of Hesiod, and the latest songs from the streets of Antioch. Berenice had been induced to tell her adventures, of which she gave as authentic an account as perhaps her visitors gave of their romantic haps and doings on less savory fields. The glory of the western sky, the palette of colors ready to be painted together into the sunset, the grand old Temple mount of the Jews, over which echoed now and then the bugle-calls of a hostile race—these, together with the quickening influence of their generous repast, now lifted their discourse to higher planes.
"All religions are one," said Lydia, the wife of the High Priest. "The Jews should be the first to recognize this. Since we say that there is one only living and true God, it surely follows that Jove, and the Phœnicians' Baal, and Ormuzd of the Persians, and Jehovah of Israel are the same."
"How," interposed the Princess, "how can Jehovah be Jove, the universal god, since Jehovah never shows himself, nor is He worshipped, except in this little land, and by the children of the one family of Abraham? He is rather like one of our household gods, such as we teach the children to do homage to, but ourselves use for ornaments."
"But he has not even an image," laughed Cynthia, the wife of Seron. "I have learned in Egypt that the gods always abide near their images."
"That is if they are pretty images, beautifully carved and painted. For the gods seem to be as vain as we women who love our mirrors," said Helena.