"I shall see thee once more," he said hurriedly, feeling that he dared not make retraction. He took up the pilgrim's wallet containing his belongings, and put out his hand to her. She took it, so wistfully, so sorrowfully, that a wave of compunction swept over him. Bending low, he pressed his lips to her palm, and hastened, full of agitation, out of the alabarch's house. The preparations for the Feast of Flora had been brought to completeness. The funds for the lavish display had come out of the taxes upon provinces, the flamens managed it, the patricians and the rich patronized it and all Alexandria, whether rich or poor, free or enslaved, plunged into its celebration with recklessness and relish. The dwellers of the Regio Judaeorum took no part in the celebration, but Marsyas saw that a spirit of interest invaded the district, even to the doors of the great Synagogue. Mothers in Israel put aside the wimples over their faces when they met in the narrow passages or the market-places to talk of the recurring abomination in lowered voices and with sidelong glances to see if the velvet-eyed children, who clung to their garments, heard. Fathers in Israel, rabbis and constabularies were abroad to make preparation against the local characteristic which tended to turn every popular gathering into a demonstration against the Jews. The bloody uproar of the preceding year was fresh in the fear of the people, and though Lysimachus had spread abroad the promise of the proconsul, the Regio Judaeorum had cause to be doubtful of the favor of a former persecutor. But as the young man entered the Gentile portion of the city, he saw that, from the Lochias to the Gate of the Necropolis, Alexandria was no longer a city of normal life and labor but a play-ground for revel and lawlessness. The two main avenues which crossed the city toward the four cardinal points were cleared of traffic and the marks of wheel and hoof were stamped out by crowds that filled the roadways. The crowding glories of Alexandrian architecture which lined these noble highways--temples, palaces, theaters, baths, gymnasia, stadia and fora, high marks of both Greek and Roman society--were wreathed, pillar and plinth, with laurel and roses, lilies and myrtle, nelumbo and lotus.