in, with her lips
compressed. However they had disposed her, she would not accept the
menial attitude. She had not finished her honey-cakes.

He came round to her, drew up a chair and sat down beside her. She
ignored him, making a feint that was not entirely successful at
interest in her fruit.

"Who art thou, in truth?" he asked finally.

"Laodice," she answered coldly.

He sighed and she added nothing more.

"What can your purpose be in this?" he asked.

She ignored the question. After a longer silence, he said in an
altered and softened tone:

"What an innocent you are! Certainly this is your first attempt! What
marplot told you that such a thing as you have essayed was possible?"

She put aside her plate and her cup, and turned to him.

"By your leave I will retire," she said.

"Not yet," he answered, smiling. "It is my duty as a Jew to help you
while there is time."

She settled back in her chair and looked at the cluster of plants
while he talked.

"Nothing so damages the beauty of a woman as trickery. No bad woman is
beautiful very long. There comes a canker on her soul's beauty, in her
face, that disfigures her, soon or late. Whoever you are, whatever
your condition, you are lovely yet. Be beautiful; of a surety then you
must be good."

It was the same old hypocritical pose that the bad man assumes to
cloak himself before innocence. Laodice remembered the incident in the
hills.

"Where," she asked coldly, "is he who was with you at Emmaus?"

The pretender started a little, but the increase of alarm on his face
showed that he realized next that here was a peril in this woman which
he had overlooked.

"Gone," he said unreadily, "gone back to Ephesus."

She did not know what pain this announcement of that winsome
stranger's desertion would waken in her heart. Her eyes fell; her
brows lifted a little; the corners of her mouth became pathetic. The
pretender, casting a sidelong glance at her, saw to his own safety
that she had believed him.

"He was a parasite," he sighed, "living off my bounty. But even that
did not invite him when he neared the peril of this city. So he turned
back. I--I do not blame him," he added with a little laugh.

"Blame him?" she said quickly. "You--you do not blame him?"

"No! Any place, any condition is more desirable than residence in
Jerusalem at this hour."

"If one seeks but to be comfortable. But here is a place for work and
for achievement," she declared.