d them off again. So now the
star of Venus is set, and that of Pallas in the ascendant. Wherefore
tell me--what am I to do with Saint Firebrand?'

'Cyril?'

'Cyril.'

'Justice.'

'Ah, Fairest Wisdom, don't mention that horrid word out of the
lecture-room. In theory it is all very well; but in poor imperfect
earthly practice, a governor must be content with doing very much what
comes to hand. In abstract justice, now, I ought to nail up Cyril,
deacons, district visitors, and all, in a row, on the sandfill out
side. That is simple enough; but, like a great many simple and excellent
things, impossible.'

'You fear the people?'

'Well, my dear lady, and has not the villainous demagogue got the whole
mob on his side? Am I to have the Constantinople riots re-enacted here?
I really cannot face it; I have not nerve for it; perhaps I am too lazy.
Be it so.'

Hypatia sighed. 'Ah, that your excellency but saw the great duel which
depends on you alone! Do not fancy that the battle is merely between
Paganism and Christianity--'

'Why, if it were, you know, I, as a Christian, under a Christian and
sainted emperor, not to mention his august sister--'

'We understand,' interrupted she, with an impatient wave of her
beautiful hand. 'Not even between them; not even between philosophy and
barbarism. The struggle is simply one between the aristocracy and the
mob,--between wealth, refinement, art, learning, all that makes a nation
great, and the savage herd of child-breeders below, the many ignoble,
who were meant to labour for the noble few. Shall the Roman empire
command or obey her own slaves? is the question which you and Cyril have
to battle out; and the fight must be internecine.'

'I should not wonder if it became so, really,' answered the prefect,
with a shrug of his shoulders. 'I expect every time I ride, to have my
brains knocked out by some mad monk.'

'Why not? In an age when, as has been well and often said, emperors and
consulars crawl to the tombs of a tent-maker and a fisherman, and kiss
the mouldy bones of the vilest slaves? Why not, among a people whose
God is the crucified son of a carpenter? Why should learning, authority,
antiquity, birth, rank, the system of empire which has been growing up,
fed by the accumulated wisdom of ages,--why, I say, should any of
these things protect your life a moment from the fury of any beggar who
believes that the Son of God died for him as much as for you, and that
he is