Glaucon clutched the bag. At length he opened it.
"You may have some of them," he said. "This brooch of pearls was once worn by Arsinoë, sister of the great Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Egypt. It came to my grandfather, who had made many loans of convenience to the house of Ptolemy, which were never paid. This cluster of diamonds belonged to the great Joseph, the tax-gatherer, whose palace of white marble is beyond Jordan. He needed a vast sum of ready money in order to buy the office of farmer of the revenues of Syria when our land was under Egypt. He outwitted a whole company of merchants from Tyre by offering single-handed more than they all together. It was my grandfather who advanced to Joseph the needed gold—which, of course, never was returned, as our possession of his jewels shows. Joseph had nothing finer than these in all his marble castle."
One by one the gems slipped from Glaucon's fingers into those of the Princess.
"And that! Oh, how magnificent!" cried she, as he drew a necklace of scores of precious stones, and spread it into shape upon the ebony table.
"That I must never part with. It was my mother's, and now is Debor—Berenice's," said Glaucon, gripping the necklace with hesitating fingers.
"But she can never claim it, now that she has gone over to the traitors, and is herself outlawed," argued the temptress.
"Yet it is hers," replied Glaucon, his voice softening as if a tear was diffused through it. "I cannot part with it."
"Glaucon, my love!" cried the Princess, taking his face between her hands, and kissing him upon the lips.
Deborah threw aside the curtain, and stood before the frightened couple.