'clock the next morning, Raphael Aben-Ezra was lying in bed,
alternately yawning over a manuscript of Philo Judaeus, pulling the ears
of his huge British mastiff, watching the sparkle of the fountain in the
court outside, wondering when that lazy boy would come to tell him that
the bath was warmed, and meditating, half aloud....

'Alas! poor me! Here I am, back again--just at the point from which I
started!.... How am I to get free from that heathen Siren? Plagues on
her! I shall end by falling in love with her.... I don't know that I
have not got a barb of the blind boy in me already. I felt absurdly
glad the other day when that fool told me he dare not accept her modest
offer. Ha! ha! A delicious joke it would have been to have seen Orestes
bowing down to stocks and stones, and Hypatia installed in the ruins of
the Serapeium, as High Priestess of the Abomination of Desolation!. And
now.... Well I call all heaven and earth to witness, that I have fought
valiantly. I have faced naughty little Eros like a man, rod in hand.
What could a poor human being do more than try to marry her to some one
else, in hopes of sickening himself of the whole matter? Well, every
moth has its candle, and every man his destiny. But the daring of
the little fool! What huge imaginations she has! She might be another
Zenobia, now, with Orestes as Odenatus, and Raphael Aben-Ezra to play
the part of Longinus, and receive Longinus's salary of axe or poison.
She don't care for me; she would sacrifice me, or a thousand of me, the
cold-blooded fanatical archangel that she is, to water with our blood
the foundation of some new temple of cast rags and broken dolls.... Oh,
Raphael Aben-Ezra, what a fool you are!.... You know you are going off
as usual to her lecture, this very morning!'

At this crisis of his confessions the page entered, and announced, not
the bath, but Miriam.

The old woman, who, in virtue of her profession, had the private entry
of all fashionable chambers in Alexandria, came in hurriedly; and
instead of seating herself as usual, for a gossip, remained standing,
and motioned the boy out of the room.

'Well my sweet mother? Sit: Ah? I see! You rascal, you have brought in
no wine for the lady. Don't you know her little ways yet?'

'Eos has got it at the door, of course,' answered the boy, with a saucy
air of offended virtue.

'Out with you, imp of Satan!' cried Miriam. 'This is no time for
winebibbing. Raphael Aben-Ezra, why ar