"I hear--I hear Philadelphus!"
He turned from her obediently.
"It is not my last hope," he said to himself. "Neither has she
suffered her last perplexity in this house. I shall come again."
He passed out into the streets of Jerusalem.
Chapter XVI
THE SPREAD NET
Beginning with the moment that the Maccabee first entered her hall,
Amaryllis struggled with a perplexity. Certain discrepancies in the
hastily concocted story which that stern compelling stranger who had
called himself Hesper of Ephesus had told had started into life a
doubt so feeble that it was little more than a sensation.
Love and its signs had been a lifelong study to her; she knew its
stubbornness; she was wise in the judgment of human nature to know
that love in this stranger was no light thing to be dislodged. And to
finish the sum of her perplexities, she felt in her own heart the
kindling of a sorrowful longing to be preferred by a spirit strong,
forceful and magnetic as was that of the man who had called himself
Hesper of Ephesus.
With the egotism of the courtezan she summarized her charms. Even
there were spirits in that fleshly land of Judea to whom the delicate
refinement of her beauty, the reserve of her bearing and the power of
her mentality had appealed more strongly than a mere opulence of
physical attraction. She had her ambitions; not the least of these was
to be loved by an understanding nature.
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