Classicus lifted his brows and arose to the proper spirit in which to greet a king. "Count it not flattery, lord," the alabarch cried, extending his hands toward the new-comers, "that I say that Abraham's radiant visitors were not more welcome than thou!" "Better the unprepared alabarch," said Marsyas, "than any host who hath expected his guests!" The prince laughed, and discovering Lydia, bowed low to her. "No change in thee, sweet Lydia," he exclaimed as she bent in obeisance to the fillet of gold about his forehead. Marsyas stood a moment aside, his glance roving quickly from her to Classicus. With an effort he put back the rush of feeling that crowded upon his composure and came to her. "Hast thou not changed, Lydia?" he asked. The hand closing over his did not belie the tremor in her voice. "A blessing on you both," she said. "You are the redemption of this house of trouble!" "We have been everything but heroes in our days," Marsyas said. "Welcome the opportunity!" "Ho! Classicus!" Agrippa cried jovially, "hast thou failed to overthrow the tribute-demanding Sphinx or the Dragon?" Marsyas gazed at the philosopher standing with inclined head, while he made felicitous answers to the prince, and said to himself: "Happy phrase, my lord King! There standeth the tribute-demanding Sphinx, even now!" Agrippa addressed himself to the alabarch, and between Marsyas and Classicus there stood no saving obstruction. Marsyas' nostrils quivered; he had fleeting but perfect summaries of the wrongs the man had worked against him. To find him now a guest entertained under the roof he had striven to injure, brought the Essene's temper up to a climacteric point. But he felt Lydia's presence, pacific, temperate and persuasive, restraining him. Of all the many deceits he had used throughout his precarious life of late, none seemed so impossible of practice as to offer a dispassionate word to Classicus. He was saved for the moment by an exclamation from the alabarch. "In all truth, that manifestation of Caesar's favor?" he cried eagerly. "A truth!" Agrippa declared. "Rome made a dandy out of Marsyas. Twelve legionaries, before he would stir a step to Egypt! Twelve! All armed; brasses so polished that one looks into the sun who looks at one. None short of three cubits in stature and visaged like Mars!" Marsyas cut off the prince's raillery with a direct and serious query. "How is it with our lady?" "Still in hiding from Flaccus," the alabarch replied. Agrippa looked in astonishment from one to another. "Surely," he said earnestly, "you have not carried this delusion to such an extreme!" "Delusion, lord," Marsyas repeated, facing him. "Let those first speak who are not deluded. Then thou shall apply the word to him it fits."