Lydia sprang up; yet before the rush of precipitate speech reached her lips, there came, imperative and distinct, Marsyas' telepathic demand on her attention. Tender but commanding, his dark eyes rested upon her.
"Thou shall not betray thyself for me!" they said. "Thou shalt not bring sorrow to thy father's heart and disaster upon thy head! Thou shalt keep silence, and permit me to defend thee! I command thee; thou canst do naught else but obey!"
She wavered, her cheeks suffused, and her eyes fell. When she lifted them again, they were flashing with tears. A moment, and she slipped past her guests into the house.
The alabarch broke the startled silence; he had turned almost wrathfully upon Classicus.
"It seems," he exclaimed, "that thou hast needlessly broadened thine interests into matters which once did not concern thee!"
"Good my father," Classicus responded, "thou hast lost two sons already to idolatry and false doctrines. And thy lovely daughter, thou seest, is no more secure from the seductions of an attractive apostasy than were they!"
"It is not needful to point the man of discernment to his duty," Classicus returned.
"Methinks," said Marsyas, rising, "that the sharp point of a pretext urges me out of Alexandria, as it did in Judea. Thou hast had no scruples," he continued, turning to Agrippa, "thus far in accepting the companionship of an accused man, so I do not expect to be cast off now."
"But," Agrippa protested, stammering in his surprise and perplexity, "acquit thyself, Marsyas. Thou art no Nazarene!"
"No charge so light to lift as this, my lord," Marsyas answered. "Yet even for thy favor I will not do it!"
Agrippa looked doubtful, and the alabarch exclaimed with deep regret:
"What difficulty thou settest in the way of my debt to thee! Thou, to whom I owe my daughter's life!"
"Yet have a little faith in me," Marsyas said to him. "And for more than I am given lief to recount, I am thy debtor!"
He put the crucifix into the folds of his garments.
"I am prepared to go to Rome, even now," he added to Agrippa.
"But--I would stay until after the Feast of Flora," the prince objected stubbornly.
Cypros was breaking in, affrightedly, when Flaccus interrupted.
"Come! come!" he said, with a bluff assumption of good nature. "Thou art not banished from the city, young man! I am legate over Alexandria, and a conscienceless pagan, wherefore thou hast not offended my gods nor done aught to deserve my disfavor. Get thee down to Rhacotis among thy friends--or thine enemies--till the Herod hath diverted himself with Flora, and go thy way to Rome! What a tragedy thou makest of nothing tragic!"