ice that was
usually low and grave; "and be welcome."

He came to the place she indicated at her side and sat. In silence he
waited until the tiring-woman had finished her service and departed.
Then it was Amaryllis who spoke.

"You left us abruptly on occasion of your first visit."

"The siege was of greater interest to you than I was. When I
discovered the cause of the disturbance, you would have failed to
remember me."

"Yet I recall you readily after many days."

"The city is in disorder; conventions can not always be observed in
war-time. I returned when I could."

"Our interest in you as our guest has not abated. Philadelphus is
ready to see you, at any time," she said, watching his face.

"And in time of war," he answered composedly, "we intend many things
in the first place which we do not carry out in the second. I do not
care to see--Philadelphus."

She lifted her brows. He answered the implied question.

"I was a familiar to this Philadelphus; he is young and boastful,
talkative as a woman. If he means to be king, as those who knew him in
Ephesus were given to believe, it is not unnatural that some of us,
without fortune or tie to keep us home, should follow him--as
parasites, if you will--to share in the largess which he will surely
give his friends if he succeeds."

He did not face her when he made this speech, and he did not observe
the amusement that crept into her eyes. He could not sense his own
greatness of presence sufficiently to know that his claim to be a
parasite upon so incapable a creature as the false Philadelphus would
awaken doubt in the mind of an intelligent woman like Amaryllis.

He felt that he was not covering his tracks well, and put his
ingenuity to a test.

"The boon-craver therefore should not sit like a dog, begging crumbs,
till the table is laid. My hunger would appear as competition, if I
showed it him, while he is yet unfed. Of a truth, I would not have him
know I am here."

"I will keep thy secret," she promised, smiling.

"I thank you," he said gravely. "I came, on this occasion, to ask
after the young woman, whose name I have not learned--her whom you
have sheltered."

Amaryllis' smiling eyes darkened suddenly.

"Pouf!" she said. "I had begun to hope that you had come to see me!"

"I had not John's permission," he objected.

"Have you Philadelphus' permission to see her?"

He looked his perplexity.

"What," she exclaimed, "has she not laid her claim