"Nay, nay, Lydia; I love thee! It is my one virtue; my sinful soul hath been married to thee these many strange months. Thou art become a necessity to my life, as needful as bread and drink, as blood and breath! Thou art the essential salt in my veins--the world to me! Nay, more! Thou art love, for world is a word with boundaries! I have striven for thy sake and I have not failed. I am able now to obtain the quieting of thy chief enemy, the refreshment of the starved heart in me, thirsting for revenge, and of our own security henceforward in the world. Yet, I am not going to Judea with Agrippa. I abide here with thee in Alexandria, until I have won the immediate safety of thy body and thy soul!" She strove to stop him in his resolution, but he kissed her, and, leading her to the foot of the well-remembered stairs, whispered his good night. CHAPTER XXXI THE DREGS OF THE CUP OF TREMBLING By noon the following day, all Alexandria roared with the news that Agrippa had returned a king! The Regio Judaeorum lost its repose. Certain irrational of the inhabitants displayed carpeting and garlands in honor of the Jewish potentate, within their boundaries. But others, instructed by instinct, closed the fronts of the houses and laid their treasure within grasp. By the advice of Marsyas, Agrippa had caused his ship to bring to, outside the harbor, and await the dropping of darkness before he came ashore. The few hours he spent in Alexandria had been passed under cover, and none without the alabarch's household was aware of his presence in the city. The newly-crowned Judean king found it difficult to repress his desire for ostentation, and when Marsyas' plan for secrecy miscarried at last, Agrippa was irritated because he had been deprived of a longed-for opportunity to astonish the Alexandrians. "But who could have told it?" he asked, with ill-concealed satisfaction. Marsyas' lips curled. "Classicus," he said. Before the porch of the alabarch's house groups of people came to stand and discuss the fortunes of the Herod. The sounds, never congratulatory, began to change in temper. As the day grew, numbers began to accumulate and hang like sullen bees buzzing insurrection. Though they themselves were mongrels cast out of twenty subjugated kingdoms and bullied into unspeakable servitude by the tyrant Rome, Prejudice, unarmed with argument and speaking in dialect, arose and rebelled at Alexandria entertaining a Jewish king.