too much.'

'The food of slaves!' he answered. 'Well, I will eat, and be ashamed of
eating. Stay, did I tell you? Six new pupils in the mathematical school
this morning. It grows! It spreads! We shall conquer yet!'

She sighed. 'How do you know that they have not come to you, as Critias
and Alcibiades did to Socrates, to learn a merely political and mundane
virtue? Strange! that men should be content to grovel, and be men, when
they might rise to the rank of gods! Ah, my father! That is my bitterest
grief! to see those who have been pretending in the morning lecture-room
to worship every word of mine as an oracle, lounging in the afternoon
round Pelagia's litter; and then at night--for I know that they do
it--the dice, and the wine, and worse. That Pallas herself should be
conquered every day by Venus Pandemos! That Pelagia should have more
power than I! Not that such a creature as that disturbs me: no created
thing, I hope, can move my equanimity; but if I could stoop to hate--I
should hate her--hate her.'

And her voice took a tone which made it somewhat uncertain whether, in
spite of all the lofty impassibility which she felt bound to possess,
she did not hate Pelagia with a most human and mundane hatred.

But at that moment the conversation was cut short by the hasty entrance
of a slave girl, who, with fluttering voice, announced--

'His excellency, madam, the prefect! His chariot has been at the gate
for these five minutes, and he is now coming upstairs.'

'Foolish child!' answered Hypatia, with some affectation of
indifference. 'And why should that disturb me? Let him enter.'

The door opened, and in came, preceded by the scent of half a dozen
different perfumes, a florid, delicate-featured man, gorgeously dressed
out in senatorial costume, his fingers and neck covered with jewels.

'The representative of the Caesars honours himself by offering at the
shrine of Athene Polias, and rejoices to see in her priestess as lovely
a likeness as ever of the goddess whom she serves.... Don't betray me,
but I really cannot help talking sheer paganism whenever I find myself
within the influence of your eyes.'

'Truth is mighty,' said Hypatia, as she rose to greet him with a smile
and a reverence.

'Ah, so they say--Your excellent father has vanished. He is really too
modest--honest, though--about his incapacity for state secrets. After
all, you know, it was your Minervaship which I came to consult. How
has this turb