In an hour he ascended the dais in robes of purple velvet with the Pharisee fringes in gold. Cypros, filled with pleasurable anticipations, was beside him in the garments that Mariamne had worn. The king cast an eye over the carpeting, the canopy and the gorgeous dressing of his throne and said to Cypros: "Perpol! the place reeks with the smell of newness! But be not conscious of it! Perchance none will guess that the hands of the upholsterers are still warm on the fabric." The genuflexions of the series of attendants at the archway and beyond marked the coming of Marsyas and Lydia. A Jewish chamberlain within the hall bent to the pavement and announced to the king that his visitors approached. Agrippa relaxed even more comfortably in his throne and let his scepter fall into his lap. But Cypros, more conscious of her debt to those who visited her now than of her state, smiled and moved forward and looked down the long chamber for the first glimpse of them. But it was not the Marsyas and the Lydia she had expected to see. Even to one of her unready perceptions, the change upon the two was strangely marked. They came side by side, both in the simple white garments of the ceremonially clean, but Marsyas' head was uncovered and Lydia's locks were wholly unbound, after the custom of Jewish brides. Within a few paces of the throne-dais they stopped. With all her former grace, Lydia sank to her knees, but Marsyas, after the oriental salaam, stood beside her. Cypros, with her eyes shining, and after an eager glance at her lord, arose and stepped to the edge of the dais. Then Agrippa got up, with his purple trailing effectively, and came down from his high seat, and approached his guests. "It is the one pain of mine exaltation," he said as he extended his arms to Marsyas, "that mine old loves believe that they must approach me now with humility." "Yet they no less expect that thou wilt raise them," Marsyas said, returning the king's embrace. Agrippa lifted Lydia to her feet and kissed her. "There, by my kingdom!" he exclaimed. "I rejoice at thy wedding for the privilege it gives me! May joy be thy portion, and peace and abundance and years be multiplied unto you both! Evoe! as the heathen say! But for your sanctified atmosphere, I would have the trumpeters blow you a fan-fare!" He handed Lydia to Cypros, who waited almost tearfully. "Go, let the queen congratulate thee that thou hast wedded an upright man in the beginning and saved thyself of the pain of making him one--as she had to do! Come up," he continued to Marsyas, "and sit at our feet. And tell us of yourselves." With his arm over Marsyas' shoulder, he went back to his dais, and sitting, had Marsyas take the guest's chair at his side, while Cypros bestowed Lydia on a velvet cushion at her feet. "So much, so long my story, that I falter at its beginning, as one beginning a day's journey at sunset," said Marsyas.