well you know the marks of delinquency!" Philadelphus said with a
glimmer of resentment in his eyes.

"Who does not? What do the Jewish psalmists and proverbialists and
purists depict so minutely as that migrating iniquity, the strange
woman?"

"But look at her!" Philadelphus insisted. "I have not seen anything so
bewitching since I left Ephesus!"

"No; nor a long time before!" Julian declared. "I must have a nearer
look."

"Careful! You will wake her!"

Julian's face showed a sneer at his companion's concern.

"I'll have a care not to wake the old Boeotian," he said.

He stepped between Laodice and her sleeping servant. The mute with the
stupor of slumber further to disable his dulled hearing, did not move.

"Young!" Philadelphus exclaimed in a whisper. "And new to the life!"

"Pfui!" Julian scoffed. "Sleep makes even Venus look innocent!"

"Then this is the most innocent wickedness I have seen in months!"

"So you catalogue innocence as a charm! It's not here. But if she had
no beauty but that eyelash I'd be speared upon it!"

Philadelphus turned toward the old servant plunged in the exhausted
sleep of weary age.

"Thou grizzled nightmare!" he exclaimed vindictively.

He glanced again at the girl. Julian had knelt beside her. Between the
two men passed a look that was mutually understood.

"Remember," Julian whispered, "you are a married man."

Philadelphus paled suddenly with anger as the intent of his companion
dawned upon him, but he put off his temper shrewdly.

"And so approaching a time when wayside beauties will no longer be
free to me," he said, cutting off his fellow in the beginning of his
preemption. "And you have a long freedom before you."

There was so much challenge in his manner that Julian accepted it. He
reached into his tunic and drew forth a pair of dice.

"We will play for her," he said.

The Maccabee put the tesserae aside.

"We will not use them," he said. "I know them to be cogged. Let us
have the judgment of a coin."

A bronze coin of Agrippa was produced. Julian in getting at his purse
brushed against the sleeping girl and as the pair glanced at her
before they tossed, her large eyes opened full in Julian's face. A
moment, almost breathless for the two, and terror flared up in her
eyes. She started up, but Julian's hand dropped on her.

"Peace, Phryne!" he said.

She shrank from his touch, literally into the arms upon which
Philadelphus rested his weight. She lo