“A pest on these wandering synagogue ranters, who upset our daughters’ beliefs in the old gods.” The woman’s smile was hard as marble. “She has not moved from that window for three nights since the fellow strayed into Iconium and began speaking in the square! I can do nothing with her. I like not her silence, Thamyris! I would she stormed; but she sits silent as stone—listening, listening to that babbler! Who is he? A girl never knows herself till a man teaches her what love is. Can’t you get rid of him?” And the hard laugh of the girl’s mother had a sinister knowledge that was not of youth, as she shot a glance at the middle-aged man, which he read without words. “I want my daughter married. She is eighteen summers this night. She will marry as I bid her, or go to the temple gods and take her fate. I will have no daughter of eighteen summers betraying my years.” The man laughed; but he laughed with angry red flush. He flung himself down on the bench. “And yet, my Mother, eighteen summers wed to fifty make not for peace to the man unless the maid come willingly. You ask—who is he? I know not, except that he has changed his name from Saul to Paul, follows the new sect of that Christus crucified in Jerusalem and boasts he is a Roman citizen, else we could have him crucified, too, for creating disorder by blaspheming against Greek gods. All I know is—he is a fool. When he came here first and worked miracles of healing, the people would have offered sacrifices to him as to a god—he could have grown rich from the gifts of one caravan. I would have pushed him, myself, for the profit in it, if he hadn’t played the fool and backed away from the rabble’s worship and gifts; but when the people were ready to crown him with garlands and make offerings of beasts and jewels and gold, he had to cry out he was only a man and stop them; and now the rabble are ready to stone him as a pious fraud. I could leave him to the rabble but I fear the damage is done—he has chilled Thecla’s love for me; and I’ll have no unwilling bride.” “Can’t you get rid of him?” insistently repeated the mother. “I’ll try. I can lodge a complaint and have him imprisoned for causing disorder; but he is Roman citizen—more than that, I dare not do—”