“The Messiah?” he said, and she knew by the inflection that he had not meant that King when he had spoken.

He noted that her hair was coiled upon her head when he threw back her veil and he turned to that at once.

“You wear your hair in a fashion,” he said, “that once meant that which men dislike to discover of a woman whom they greatly admire.  I hope it is no longer significant.”

“I go,” she said after a silence, “to join my husband in Jerusalem.”

The Maccabee’s lips parted and an expression of disappointment with an admixture of surprise and vexation came over his face.  But what did it matter?  Were she as free as air, he was a married man.  The humor of the situation appealed to him.  He dropped his head into the bend of his elbow and laughed.

“Welladay, this is a respite for us both, then,” he said.  But realizing that an admission that he was married might hopelessly reduce their hour to a formal basis, he took refuge in a falsehood.

“My companion expects to meet a wife in Jerusalem,” he continued.  “A royal creature, daughter of an ancient and haughty family, with all her life purpose congealed in lofty and serious intent, her coffers lined with gold and her face as determined and unbending as Juno’s with her jealousy stirred.  He is not delighted, poor lad!”

Laodice sat very still and listened.  There was enough similarity in this story to interest her.

The Maccabee, seeing that he had made an impression with this deception and feeling somehow a relief in making it, went on, delighted with his deceit.

“He has not seen her since he married her in his childhood, but he knows full well how she will look when he meets her.”

Surprise paralyzed Laodice.  Was the smiling and dangerous companion of this man, her husband?

The Maccabee, meanwhile, deliberately remarked her charms and recounted their antithesis in making up a picture of the woman he expected to meet as his wife.

“She will, according to his expectations, be meager and thin, not plump!  Thoughtful women and women with a purpose are never plump!  And she will be black and pale, all eyes, with a nose which is not the noble nose of our race.  She will be religious and it will not make her happy.  She will realize her value to her husband and he will not be permitted to forget it.  She will be ambitious and full of schemes.  She will be the larger part of his family, though by the balance she will weigh not so much as an omer of barley.”

Laodice got upon her feet in her agitation and raised her veil to stare at this slander.  Was this a picture of herself she heard?  The Maccabee was enjoying himself uncommonly.

“She will wear the garments of a queen, but—­how little a slip of silver tissue will become her!”

Laodice looked down in alarm at her gleaming garment, and reached for her mantle.  The Maccabee had no idea how much pleasure he was to derive in making his own story, Julian’s.  He continued, almost recklessly, now.