He smiled slowly; slowly let the strand fall through his fingers. He
looked into her eyes and she saw a sudden light immeasurably
compassionate and tender grow there. A weakness swept over her; she
felt that she had been longing for that light. Then he rose quickly
and moved away.
Old Momus, the mute, with his head on his knees slept on.
Julian, who had been halted involuntarily by the attitude of his
companion and had been an amazed witness of this extraordinary end of
the incident, looked at Philadelphus' face in frank stupefaction. But
Philadelphus laid a hand so forceful and compelling on his companion's
shoulder that it left the pink print of his fingers on the flesh,
turned him toward the horses and led him away.
"We will breakfast farther on," he said.
A moment and they were swinging down the stony side of the hill toward
the east, and Laodice, with her hand clutching her excited heart, had
not thought of flinging herself upon Momus. She raised herself
gradually to watch them as far as she could see, and her fixed and
stunned gaze rested with immense homesickness and longing on the
taller man radiant against the background of a risen sun.
Chapter IV
THE TRAVELERS
The Maccabee rode on, unconscious of Julian's critical gaze. The smile
on his lips flickered now brightly, now very faint. The incident in
the hills had not made him entirely happy, but it had awakened in him
something which was latent in him, something which he had never felt
before, but which held a sweet familiarity that the blood of his
fathers in him had recognized.
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