Saul Of Tarsus Part 56

"Is there something thou canst do?" he asked.

She hesitated; something seemed to fill her eyes; her lids quivered and dropped; speech trembled on her lips, but the momentary impulse pa.s.sed.

After a little silence, she lifted her eyes, composed once more.

"I told thee, once upon a time," she said, "of the world. I have counseled with thee for thine own good, and sometimes thou didst heed me, but on the greater number of occasions thou hast chosen for thyself. What hast thou won from thy long battle for the stern purposes which have engaged thee? What hast thou achieved in controlling this Herod, or in working against Saul of Tarsus? What?"

He frowned and looked away.

"Nothing," she answered, "save thou hast gathered perils around thee, forced thyself into sterner deeds, and there--"

She laid a pink finger-tip between his eyes.

"--there is a blight on thy comeliness."

"Dost thou urge me to give over mine efforts? If so, speak, that I may tell thee I can not obey!" he declared.

"No? Not even if thy work maketh another unhappy--whom thou wouldst not have to be unhappy?"

He looked at her: did she mean Lydia? Or was she concerned for Cla.s.sicus?

"Art thou defending Cla.s.sicus?" he asked.

"Nay," she smiled, "but I defend myself!"

This was puzzling, and at best irrelevant. He had come, burdened with trouble and concern for Agrippa's life, and she was leading away into less serious things. It was not like her to be capricious. Perhaps there was more in her meaning than he had grasped.

"I pray thee," she continued, "mingle a little sweet with thy toil!"

He arose and moved away from her.

"O Junia, how can I?" he demanded impatiently.

"Nay, but I am asking payment of the debt thou confessest to me!"

"Help me yet in this danger of Cla.s.sicus, and I shall be thy slave!"

She arose and approached very close to him. Her face was flus.h.i.+ng, her hands were outstretched. He took them because they were offered.

"Marsyas," she whispered, her brilliant eyes searching his face, "I shall not cease to be thy confederate, but I would be more!"

With a little wrench she freed her hands from his and drew a packet from the folds of silk over her breast.

"See! I have here thy letter, which Herod brought and bitterly reproached me for mine enchantment of thee. And I kept it, till this hour!"

She put into his hands the scorched and broken letter that he had written to Lydia and had believed that he had destroyed so long before.

While he looked at it, stupefied with astonishment, she slipped her arms about his neck.

"I do not ask thee to marry me," she whispered, a little laugh rippling her breath. "Eros does not summon the law to make his sway effective.

For thou art an Essene, by repute, and no man need surrender his reputation for his character. Wherefore, though ten thousand dread penalties bound thee to celibacy, they do not dull thine eyes nor make thy cheeks less crimson! Be an Essene, or a Jew, Caesar or a slave--that can not alter thy charm! And I shall not quibble, so thou lovest me!"

Marsyas stood still while he searched her changing face. It was not a new experience for him who had brought picturesque beauty into Rome, but the source was different, the result more grave. On this occasion the seductive enumeration of his good looks awakened in him something which was affronted; whatever thing it was, it possessed an intelligence which comprehended before his brain grew furious, and, flinging itself upon his soul, buffeted it into sensitiveness.

With a rush of rage, he understood all that her act had accomplished for him.

The world of helplessly-impelled children that she had pictured to him, the world of innocence and forgivable inclinations, little warfares and artless badness, play or the feeding of primitive hungers, or of building of roof-trees--all that with which she had partly enchanted him was suddenly stripped of its atmosphere, and the glare of realities, fierce pa.s.sions, deadly hates, shamelessness and blood stood before him. In short, he had been instantly precipitated into his old Essenic misanthropy now directly imposed upon the heads of individuals, which before in his solitary days had been heaped without understanding upon the heads of strangers.

He did care because that the creature had simply betrayed her true self; more dreadful than that, she had wrested from him the charity his experience in the world had yielded him--for Lydia!

Blind fury maddened him; her offense called for a fiercer response than a blush; she had robbed his heart wholly and was burning its empty house.

He put forth his strength, undid her arms and flung her from him. For a moment he felt a bloodthirsty desire to follow her up and break her over the stone exedra, but remnants of reason prevailed.

Springing through the exit, he was gone without uttering a word in answer to her.

Junia heard the last of his footsteps on the flagging leading out of her father's grounds, and for a moment wavered between screaming for her own slaves to pursue him, or delivering him up to the praetorian guards.

"For what?" Discretion asked. "To have him tell, under torture, thy part in sheltering Agrippa? At thy peril!"

But he had flung her away; he had rejected her; he had escaped after all her pains, her pretensions, her plans! For him, she had left Alexandria and endured Caesar. For him, she had forgone seasons of conquest in Rome! For him, she had neglected Caligula, and now Caligula would be emperor. For him she had sacrificed everything and had lost, at last. He, a Jew, a manumitted slave, a barbarian! She, a favorite of emperors and consuls, a manipulator of affairs, fortunes and families! And he had rejected her!

There were m.u.f.fled flying footsteps on the sod without, and Caligula, pallid and moist with terrified perspiration, dashed into the inclosure as if seeking a place to hide.

When he saw her, he sprang back, but halted, on recognizing her.

"Ate and the Furies!" he said in a strained whisper. "What hath happened but that Caesar revived while the guards were hailing me as Imperator!"

A hater of pork, a wearer of gowns, a mutterer of prayers, a bearded clown of a rustic! And she, it was, whom he had rejected!

"Stand like a frozen pigeon!" Caligula hissed, "while I tell thee of my death! He knew what the shouts meant! He showed his teeth like a panther, transfixed me with his dead eyes and signed for wine! When he hath strength enough to order it, and breath enough to form the words--"

And she had not urged the Herod's death for his sake, and thereby imperiled her own living with Flaccus; she had sent him a pa.s.sport to Capri and one to Misenum, and rescued him from the admiring eyes of other women, to make sure of him--and he had flung her away, at last!

"He will starve me to death: drown me in the Mamertine!" Caligula raged under his breath. "Starve me, I say! Speak, corpse! What shall I do!"

Her rage by this time had so filled her that it meant to have expression or have her life.

"Kill him!" she hissed through her teeth.

It was Marsyas' sentence, but it fell upon Tiberius.

Caligula ceased to tremble and stared at her with a strange look in his bird-like eyes.

"How?" he asked.

She seized one of the pillows and brought it down over the seat of the divan, and held it firmly as if to prevent it from being thrown off.

"Thus!" she said venomously.

"But the nurses and Charicles, the physician," Caligula protested, fearing nevertheless that his protest might hold good.