"Temperate Jew! To remember a consular suggestion, while a lovely woman, and a Herod at that, besought thee for the contents of thy purse. Oh, thou art an old, old man, Lysimachus!" The alabarch laughed and frowned the next moment. "Beshrew the jest! Men who make light of virtue deserve incontinent wives. And there is this one thing apparent, which should make me serious. The Herod is absolutely penniless, and I can not turn that tender woman and her babes out of doors to take the roads of Egypt." "Rest thee in that small matter. Thou and I can spare her sesterces enough to ship her back to Judea." Lysimachus was silent for a moment. "She would not be satisfied," he said at last. "She wants three talents, though she never had afterward a crust of bread. It seems that they permitted a free-born man to pawn himself for that sum in Ptolemais and accepted the money from him!" "Shade of Herod!" the proconsul exclaimed. "It seems also that the man is in peril of the authorities, having placed himself in jeopardy to save Agrippa from Herrenius Capito, who had run Agrippa to earth for a debt he owes to Caesar--" "O, that is the way of it! I know of that man! Well, then, perchance it is not so much because she loves her husband as because the debt to the pawned one chafes. I hear that he is young and comely." "Forget the slanderous jest, Flaccus; I am ashamed of it. What shall I do in this matter?" "Lend her three talents." "She would buy the man's freedom, but what then? She would still be here in Alexandria as penniless as ever." "The consular suggestion, it seems, only held thee a moment in abeyance," the proconsul said slyly. "She will get the three hundred thousand drachmae, yet!" "She will not," the alabarch declared, "First, because I have it not; next, because I am not eager to pay a Herod's debts." "Or, chiefly, because thou shouldst never see it again." The alabarch tapped the pavement with his foot and looked away. The attitude was confession to a belief in the proconsul's convictions. "What sum couldst thou lend by pinching thyself?" Flaccus asked presently. "Two hundred thousand drachmae--but not to a Herod. I could lose five talents without ruin." "Give her five talents, then; give it--do not slander a gift by calling it a loan." "What! Toss an alms to a Herod? They would throw it in my face!" "Jupiter! but they are haughty!" The alabarch made no answer and Flaccus looked out at the night dropping over his garden. "Why not hold the lady in hostage, here, for five talents?" he asked after a while. The alabarch looked startled; it was Roman extremes, a trifle too brutal for him to dress in diplomacy. He demurred.