But when she reached the inner chamber, with the arch opening into the alabarch's presiding room, she saw within the proconsul.
She hesitated, surprised and alarmed, but presently her father, raising his eyes, saw her and signed to her to enter.
The proconsul stopped in the middle of a sentence to greet her, not from courtesy, but because she was a consideration. She took her place on an ivory footstool at the foot of the alabarch's chair and seemed to efface herself.
Lysimachus trifled with a stick of wax and heard Flaccus to the end of the sentence. The old tone of assumed cordiality was gone. Flaccus had ascended again to the plane of a legate speaking with a Jew.
"So I shall pay thee thy five talents and release the lady, that she may be sent to Rome," he concluded.
"The gossip of the lady's arrival in Rome would work havoc, sir. She would be there engaging Antonia's attention, which should be devoted without lapse, in other directions."
"The Herod's lady need not arrive with the blare of trumpets," was the cool retort, "and since thy talents are returned to thee, Lysimachus, thou art not asked to carry thy concern into Rome."
The thin cheeks of the alabarch grew pink and Lydia raised a pair of somber eyes to the proconsul's face.
"It is not a matter of my loan," the alabarch answered without a tremor in his melodious voice, "but it is that I held her in hostage in the beginning."
"At my suggestion. Then thou canst release her at my suggestion--and if the loan sits roughly on thy conscience we shall call it a gift at this late day."
"If it please thee, good sir, we have left the discussion of the talents. It is the lady who concerns us now. I would be plain with thee; I should reproach myself did I let her proceed out of my house."
"Call the lady," Flaccus commanded. "We will lay the matter before her."
"I bring her more relief than sleep," was the blunt reply. "Bring her hither."
"That I and my servants alone shall accompany her to Rome."
Flaccus gazed straight at the alabarch's daughter. Lysimachus sat without movement. He knew that his daughter had seen at once that which he had instantly divined--that Flaccus had no intention of sending Cypros to Rome.
"Bring the lady," Flaccus insisted, "and we shall lay our plans thereafter."