"I would thou couldst aid us, Justin. Not now is anything more precious than help, and nothing less possible." "And to say lastly," he continued, looking into her face, "that I deplore that haunted look in thine eyes, Lydia. What does it mean?" "That I grow older, wiser, sadder--and less fortunate." "Thou shouldst study the philosophy of the Nazarenes," he declared. "I find that much of their teaching, stripped of its frenzy and reduced to the dignity of pure language, hath much comfort in it." "Does it promise that sorrow will not come to them who espouse it?" she asked, looking away. "Nay, but it preaches universal love. Could I teach thee that, sorrow should never approach thee or me henceforth!" "I fear thou dost not understand them," she said dubiously. "Not wholly," he admitted. "I have not yet been able to agree with them, that I, Justin Classicus, scholar and Sadducee, should find it in my heart to love a crook-back shepherd that speaks Aramaic, rejoices on conchs, relishes onions and is washed only when the rains wet him." He smiled, and Justin Classicus' face was helped by a smile. Mirth possessed him entirely, cast up a transitory flush in his cheeks and lighted torches in his eyes. But Lydia looked across the Alexandrian housetops. "Why dost thou seek this new philosophy, Justin?" she asked. "To see if it be safe enough heresy to teach thee," he returned. "If it be, thou shall learn it, for in its creed of universal love, I put mine only hope that thou shalt come to love me!" "Learn the universal love for thyself, Justin: learn to love the shepherd and thine enemy--learn it in all truth, and thou mayest be content with that, and no more!" "The Lord forbid!" he cried. "If that should come to pass, learning this new philosophy, I pause, even now!" "Enemy?" he repeated, after a little in a gentler tone. "Save another hath possessed thy heart, I have no enemy--the Nazarenes recommending that one leave them out of one's catalogue of fellows!" "Canst thou not hold off thy hand, even from an enemy? Hath thy search after their philosophy taught thee so much?" He looked at her face, and saw thereon something to follow. "I can--be bought," he answered softly. She remembered his part in the ambuscade the night of the Dance of Flora, and her face paled a little. "It is not the Nazarene way," she replied unreadily. "Nay, but if the demand be great enough, any method must serve. Shall I name my price?" His voice was clear and illuminating. She arose and moved over to one of the columns, and leaning against it gazed across toward the blue sparkle of the New Port. She felt the strength of his fortification, the extent of his power over her. Not any of the many things she had hidden from all but Marsyas were unknown to him! She turned to him with appeal in her eyes, but he laughed very softly, and wrapped the kerchief skilfully about his head. His composure terrified her. He held out his hand.