"If the trumpery of Jewish housewives please you not, there is better spoil in Jerusalem." "Is anything left there?" languidly asked the woman, looking at her shapely wrist and hand. "Much. And it is game that will give zest to the catching. Listen! Since my fair goddess has tired of me, I propose that she shall find another lover more to her liking." The woman's eyes flashed. Apollonius continued: "You know, that by the ruling of the King, the rich estates of Elkiah are not to be sequestered as other property of the rebels. His son, Glaucon, having become a Greek, is recognized as the heir. A handsome fellow he is, with a thimbleful of brains; conceited, a prey to clever men, an easier victim of a clever woman--such a woman as has charmed an old soldier like me, caring as you know but little for the sex. You need but smile at Glaucon to addle his wits." "Are your wits addled?" queried the woman contemptuously. "Perhaps they have been, but I am in fair way to recover, as my scheme will prove. Should you marry this Glaucon, by Greek law it is true you would not inherit his estates; but no law prevents the fool from giving to you whatever you ask as the price of your favor; and you come high at times, as my thin belt can attest. But, my dear, you must appear to him as of princely rank, for the fellow has been flattered to believe himself courted by the very household of the King. I think I can make my letters sufficiently ennoble you, if your beauty does not evidence your divinity. Will not this sound well? Ahem! 'The Princess Helena, cousin to Apollonius!' Ah, you blush at the title. Glaucon will pay me well for persuading your Olympian wings to fold themselves on his dungheap. It is a scheme worthy the Jew himself, is it not? This little finger of yours will pick the lock of Glaucon's treasure-house." The woman laughed outright as she cried: "Shall I go to Jerusalem and act the prude? That is an art I have never practised. I surely had never won your love, my venerable Apollo, if I had posed as the chaste Artemis." "Perhaps not," replied the General, with a shrug of his shoulders, "but you have acted the chaste goddess perfectly in the eyes of others. That I will say; for I have had less than a score of opportunities for jealousy during as many moons. And I will swear to this Glaucon that I caught you in my arms as you once escaped the Grotto of Pan at Ephesus." "Grotto of Pan? Another remembrance of your nursery; and with a moral, I doubt not, as good as one of Æsop. Let me hear the story, but leave off the lesson," replied she, lolling languidly upon the couch.