Damia was a little uneasy at the attitude which he and
Gorgo had taken up after their first greeting. He was agitated and grave,
she was eager and excited, with an air of determined enterprise.

Was Eros at the bottom of it all? Were the young people going to carry
out the jest of their childhood in sober earnest? The young officer was
handsome and attractive enough, and her granddaughter after all was but a
woman.

So far as Constantine was concerned the old lady had no personal
objection to him; nay, she appreciated his steady, grave manliness and,
for his own sake, was very glad to see him once more; but to contemplate
the ship-builder's son--the grandson of a freedman--a Christian and
devoted to the Emperor, even though he were a prefect or of even higher
grade--as a possible suitor for her Gorgo, the beautiful heiress of the
greater part of her wealth--the centre of attraction to all the gilded
youth of Alexandria--this was too much for her philosophy; and, as she
had never in her life restrained the expression of her sentiments, though
she gave him a friendly hand and the usual greeting, she very soon showed
him, by her irony and impertinence, that she was as hostile to his creed
as ever.

She put her word in on every subject, and when, presently,
Demetrius--who, after Dada's rebuff, had come on to see his uncle--began
speaking of the horses he had been breeding for Marcus, and Constantine
enquired whether any Arabs from his stables were to be purchased in the
town, Damia broke out:

"You out-do your crucified God in most things I observe! He could ride on
an ass, and a stout Egyptian nag is not good enough for you."

However, the young officer was not to be provoked; and though he was very
well able to hold his own in a strife of words, he kept himself under
control and pretended to see nothing in the old woman's taunts but
harmless jesting.

Gorgo triumphed in his temperate demeanor, and thanked him with grateful
glances and a silent grasp of the hand when opportunity offered.

Demetrius, who had also known Constantine as a boy, and who, through
Porphyrius, had sold him his first charger, met him very warmly and told
him with a laugh that he had seen him before that day, that he had
evidently learnt something on his travels, that he had tracked the
prettiest head of game in all the city; and he slapped him on the
shoulder and gave him what he meant to be a very knowing glance.
Constantine could not thin