Deborah felt the flush of womanly pride mantle her face. It was a moment when almost any other woman would have turned first to her mirror, and then dropped upon her knees to thank God.
But even as she framed the image of the popular hero within the thought of her personal possession of him, the figure of the Greek intruded itself into the picture. His image was in the background, it is true; but there it was, nevertheless. She could not help following him with the eyes of her fancy. Was not Dion's soul as fine-fibred as that of Judas?
Judas had sublime faith; but this he had inherited from his fathers. It was wrought through and through his nature by training in the Law since childhood. But Dion now had the same faith. And this he had himself acquired, without gift of birth, education, or circumstance. Is it not even nobler to force one's mind through a thousand errors to the truth than to have the truth born in one, to discover one's pearl after delving the seas for it, than to find it in one's ancestral treasure-box?
Judas had risked his life for the cause of Israel. But had not Dion done as much in abandoning what seemed to him all the good of life in order to cast in his lot with the people of God?
Perhaps Deborah did not deliberately and of intent carry on this comparison. The thought of the Greek came into her mind of itself. She drove it out as she would have frightened a sparrow away from the lattice.
She then indulged the reminiscence of the various ways in which, since she had dedicated her life to her country, she had been useful to Judas. She did not doubt, even in her humility, that he spoke honestly when he said that he needed her. But the sparrow came back to the lattice. Had not God also led her to help this Greek to his better faith? And did not he need her?
She drove the sparrow away. She said that it should never come again. But, even as she said so, the sparrow twittered at the lattice.
She became puzzled with her question, "Why can I only by positive effort exclude this man from my mind? Why are his face, and form, and accents, and traits, and offered love always with me? Why does he press upon me as the daylight against the window, to be excluded only by drawing close the curtain?"
She had often observed a spring in the meadow, which the herdsmen tried to fill up and destroy; yet it broke out again, because its veins were deep and full beneath the earth. Was there such a spring of love for the Greek in her heart?
Then her problem became one of casuistry. Would it be right for her to give herself to Judas when she could not exclude another man from her thoughts, though he could not come into her life? Would not that be essential meretriciousness?