The "beauty of the evening," as she was called (for in those days they used terms like those which we moderns use, to express our infatuation for the gleams of prettiness which are quenched almost as soon as they are seen), had repeatedly endeavored to attract his attention. She was royal; she was an unrivalled dancer. Herod, who began to feel dull, begged her to favor the company with a dance, _sola_. Thereupon the daughter of Herodias looked at Paulus, to whom her previous blandishments had been addressed in vain (he was well known to be unmarried), and heaved a fiery sigh. The mere noise of it ought to have awakened his notice, and yet failed to accomplish even that small result. Had it succeeded, he was exactly the person to have regarded this woman with a feeling akin to that which, some two-and-twenty years before, she herself (or was it Herodias? they age fast in the East) had waked in the bosom of his sister under the veranda in the bower of Crispus's inn, leading out of the fine old Latian garden near the banks of the Liris. She proceeded to execute her _ballet_, her _pas seul_, her dance of immortal shame and fatal infamy. Cries of delight arose. The creature grew frantic. The court of Herod fell into two parties. One party proclaimed the performance a perfection of elegance and spirit. The other party said not a word, but glances of painful feeling passed among them. The clamorous eulogists formed the large majority. In the silent minority was numbered Paulus, who never in his life had felt such grave disgust or such settled indignation. He thought of his pure and innocent Esther--alas, _not_ his! He thought that, had it been his sister Agatha who thus outraged every rudimentary principle of the tacit social compact, he could almost find it in his heart to relieve the earth of her. Thus pondering, his glance fell upon Herod the tetrarch. The tetrarch seemed to have become delirious. He was laughing, and crying, and slobbering, and clapping his hands, and rolling his head, and rocking his body on the great state cushion under the canopy, where he "sat at table." While Paulus was contemplating him in wonder and shame, the wretched dancer came to an end of her bounds. Indecency, scientifically accidental, had been the one simple principle of the exhibition. Herod called the practised female before him, and, in the hearing of several, bade her demand from him any reward she pleased, and declared upon oath that he would grant her demand. Paulus heard the answer. After consulting apart with her mother, she reapproached the tetrarch, and, with a flushed face, said that she desired the head of a prisoner upon a dish. "What prisoner?" "John," said she.