"Not brutal, Lysimachus," Flaccus said earnestly. "Herod can not use her well; it will be a respite from her long wandering and poverty. Thou canst say to her that the five talents are all thou canst afford. Tell her that it will do no more than beach them penniless in Italy; that thou hast a crust for Agrippa--will she starve him by eating half of it, herself?" Flaccus laughed at his own words, but perplexity came into the alabarch's face. "But why?" he asked. "Why? Is it not plain to you? Keep her so that Agrippa will in honor have to redeem her if ever he become possessed of five talents!" Now the alabarch laughed. "I am not so sure. Is it native in a Herod to love his wife so well? It would be a bad mortgage for me to foreclose--one cast-off female whose chief uses are for tears!" "No, by Venus! She is too comely to play Dido. But try my plan, Alexander. It is well worth the experiment." The alabarch arose and stepped down from the rostrum. "It--it is--" he hesitated. "But then, I should have them on my hands, under any circumstances." He took a few more steps, and paused for thought. "Well enough," he said finally, "we shall see." With a motion of farewell to the proconsul, he passed out and disappeared. Flaccus dropped back into his curule, and lapsed again into gloomy meditation. The night fell and obscured him. He seemed to be waiting, but not with marked impatience. Again the atriensis bowed before him. "A lady who says she was summoned," he said. "Let her enter. And bid the lampadary light the torch, yonder, not here--and only one." The atriensis disappeared, and presently a slave with a burning reed set fire to the wick in one of the brass bowls by the arch into the vestibule, and Junia appeared. "Hither, and sit beside me, Junia," Flaccus called to her. He drew the chair closer, which the alabarch had occupied, and Junia, dropping off her mantle and vitta, sat down in it. "What a despot one's living is!" she exclaimed. "But for the fact I owe my meat and wine to thy favor, thou shouldst have come to me, to-night, not I to thee!" "I came often enough at thy beck, Junia! It were time I was visited!" "Thou ill-timed tyrant! I am expected at a feast to-night, and my young gallant doubtless waits and wonders, at my house." "Let him wait! I was his predecessor, and his better. Methinks thou hast reduced thy standard of lovers of late." "No longer the man but the substance," she answered. "In the old days it was muscle and front; now it is purse and position." "The first was love; the second calculation. Why wilt thou marry this obscure young Alexandrian--whoever he be?" "To be assured of a living--to cast off the hand thou hast had upon me, thus long." He leaned nearer that he might look into her face. "So!" he exclaimed. "Does it chafe, in truth?"