ason or other, had neglected to
urge his suit, and the Iphigenia-sacrifice had retired mercifully into
the background. Perhaps she should be able now to accomplish all without
it. And yet--it was so long to wait! Years might pass before Philammon's
education was matured, and with them golden opportunities which might
never recur again.

'Ah!' she sighed at times, 'that Julian had lived a generation later!
That I could have brought all my hard-earned treasures to the feet of
the Poet of the Sun, and cried, "Take me!--Hero, warrior, statesman,
sage, priest of the God of Light! Take thy slave! Command her--send
her--to martyrdom, if thou wilt!" A pretty price would that have been
wherewith to buy the honour of being the meanest of thy apostles, the
fellow-labourer of Iamblichus, Maximus, Libanius, and the choir of sages
who upheld the throne of the last true Caesar!'

CHAPTER XV: NEPHELOCOCCUGIA

Hypatia had always avoided carefully discussing with Philammon any
of those points on which she differed from his former faith. She was
content to let the divine light of philosophy penetrate by its own
power, and educe its own conclusions. But one day, at the very time at
which this history reopens, she was tempted to speak more openly to her
pupil than she yet had done. Her father had introduced him, a few days
before, to a new work of hers on Mathematics; and the delighted and
adoring look with which the boy welcomed her, as he met her in the
Museum Gardens, pardonably tempted her curiosity to inquire what
miracles her own wisdom might have already worked. She stopped in her
walk, and motioned her father to begin a conversation with Philammon.

'Well!' asked the old man, with an encouraging smile, 'and how does our
pupil like his new--'

'You mean my conic sections, father? It is hardly fair to expect an
unbiased answer in my presence.'

'Why so?' said Philammon. 'Why should I not tell you, as well as all the
world, the fresh and wonderful field of thought which they have opened
to me in a few short hours?'

'What then?' asked Hypatia, smiling, as if she knew what the answer
would be. 'In what does my commentary differ from the original text of
Apollonius, on which I have so faithfully based it?'

'Oh, as much as a living body differs from a dead one. Instead of mere
dry disquisitions on the properties of lines and curves, I found a
mine of poetry and theology. Every dull mathematical formula seemed
transfigured