he treated as such; and the fault of such a necessity is
Nature's, and not ours.--Yet it is most degrading!--But still, if the
only method by which the philosophic few can assume their rights, as
the divinely-appointed rulers of the world, is by indulging those lower
beings whom they govern for their good--why, be it so. It is no worse
necessity than many another which the servant of the gods must endure in
days like these.'

'Ah,' said Orestes, refusing to hear the sigh, or to see the bitterness
of the lip which accompanied the speech--'now Hypatia is herself again;
and my counsellor, and giver of deep and celestial reasons for all
things at which poor I can only snatch and guess by vulpine cunning. So
now for our lighter entertainment. What shall it be?'

'What you will, provided it be not, as most such are, unfit for the eyes
of modest women. I have no skill in catering for folly.'

'A pantomime, then? We may make that as grand and as significant as we
will, and expend too on it all our treasures in the way of gewgaws and
wild beasts.'

'As you like.'

'Just consider, too, what a scope for mythologic learning a pantomime
affords. Why not have a triumph of some deity? Could I commit myself
more boldly to the service of the gods! Now--who shall it be?'

'Pallas--unless, as I suppose, she is too modest and too sober for your
Alexandrians?'

'Yes--it does not seem to me that she would be appreciated--at all
events for the present. Why not try Aphrodite? Christians as well as
Pagans will thoroughly understand her; and I know no one who would not
degrade the virgin goddess by representing her, except a certain lady,
who has already, I hope, consented to sit in that very character, by the
side of her too much honoured slave; and one Pallas is enough at a time
in any theatre.'

Hypatia shuddered. He took it all for granted, then--and claimed her
conditional promise to the uttermost. Was there no escape? She longed to
spring up and rush away, into the streets, into the desert--anything to
break the hideous net which she had wound around herself. And yet--was
it not the cause of the gods--the one object of her life? And after
all, if he the hateful was to be her emperor, she at least was to be
an empress; and do what she would--and half in irony, and half in the
attempt to hurl herself perforce into that which she knew that she must
go through, and forget misery in activity, she answered as cheerfully as
she could.