The City of Delight | Page 6

itself to him.
Above all other suggestions in her presence was that overpowering

richness of oriental beauty which no other kind in the world may
surpass in its appeal to the loves of men. Enough of the Roman stock in
her line had given structural firmness and stature to a type which at her
age would have developed weight and duskiness, but she was taller and
more slender than the women of her race, and supple and alive and
splendid. About her hips was knotted a silken scarf of red and white
and green with long undulant fringes that added to the lithe grace in her
movements. Under it was a glistening garment of silver tissue that
reached to the small ankles laced about by the ribbons of white sandals.
For sleeves there were netted fringes through which the fine luster of
her arms was visible. About her wrists, her throat and in her hair, heavy
and shining black, were golden coins that marked her steps with
stealthy tinkling.
Costobarus, in spite of the shock of doubt and fear in his brain, looked
at her as if with the happy eyes of the astonished Maccabee. In those
full tender lips, in the slope of those black, silken brows, in the
sparkling behind the dusky slumbrous eyes, there was all the fire and
generosity and limitless charm that should make her lover's world a
place of delight and perfume and music.
"How is it with you, Laodice?" he asked, faltering a little.
"I am prepared, my father," she answered.
"I commend your despatch. I would be gone within an hour."
She bowed and Costobarus regarded her with growing wistfulness. At
this last moment his love was to become his obstacle, his fear for his
child his one cowardice.
"Dost thou remember him?" he asked without preliminary.
Laodice answered as if the thought were first in her mind.
"Not at all; and yet, if I could remember him, I may not discover in the
man of four-and-twenty anything of the lad of ten."

"He may not have changed. There are such natures, and, as I recall him,
his may well be one of these. His disposition from childhood to
boyhood did not change. When I knew him in Jerusalem, he was
worthy the notice of a man. The manner he had there he bore with him
to this, a smaller city, and hence to Ephesus, a city of another kind. It
was good to see him examine the world, reject this and that and look
upon his choice proudly. He made the schools observe him, consider
him. He did not enter them for alteration, nor was he shut up in a shell
of self-satisfaction. He entered them as a citizen of the world and as an
examiner of all philosophy. Yet the world taught him nothing. It gave
him merely the open school where regulation and atmosphere helped
him to teach himself. O wife of a child, thou shalt not be ashamed of
thy husband, man-grown!"
"How is he favored?" she asked with the first maiden hesitation
showing in the question.
"He was slender and dark and promised to be tall. He was quick in
movement, quick in temper, resourceful, aye, even shifty, I should say;
stubborn, cold in heart, hard to please."
"Fit attributes for a king," she said, half to herself, "yet he will be no
soft husband."
Costobarus looked away from her and was silent for a time.
"Daughter," he said finally, "thou hast learned indeed that thine is to be
no luxurious life. In thy restrained heart there are no dreams. Let not
thy youth, when thou seest him, put obstacle in the way of thy duty.
Whether thou lovest him or lovest him not, he is thy husband, thy
fellow in a great labor for God and for Israel. Remember the times and
the portents and shut thine ears against selfish desire. Thou seest Judea.
That which the Lord hath uttered against it through the prophets has
come to pass. Abandon thy hopes in all save the Son of God; forget
thyself; prepare to give all and expect nothing but the coming of the
King! For verily thou lookest over the edge of the world past the very
end of time!"

The solemn announcement of the Advent by this white-bearded prophet
should have discovered in her a very human and terrified girl. But it
was no new tidings to her. Since her earliest recollection she had heard
it, expected it, contemplated it, till the magnitude and terror of it had
been lost in its familiarity. She clasped her hands and dropped her eyes
and her lips moved in a silent prayer.
Costobarus remained for a space sunk in glorified meditation. But
presently he raised himself, with signs of his recent