ke prefects of them. And as they are, so are their
children! Everything which they in their vainglory regard as 'beneath
them' they tread into the dust--and we--you and I, all who labor with
their hands in the service of the state--we, in their dull eyes, are
beneath them. Mark me, boy! To-day the governor's daughter, the patrician
maiden, can smile at you because she needs you; tomorrow she will cast
you aside as I push away the old panther-skin which keeps my feet warm in
winter, as soon as the March days come!"

Nor was his aversion less for the son of the Mukaukas, whom, however, he
had never seen; when the leech had confessed to him how deep a grudge
against Orion dwelt in the heart of Paula, old Horapollo had chuckled
scornfully, and he exclaimed, as though he could read hearts and look
into the future--: "They snap at each other now, and in a day or two they
will kiss again! Hatred and love are the opposite ends of the same rod;
and how easily it is reversed!--Those two!--Like in blood is like in
kind;--such people attract each other as the lodestone tends towards the
iron and the iron towards the lodestone!"

But these and similar admonitions had produced little effect on the
physician's sentiments; even Paula's repulse of his ardent appeal after
she had moved to the house of Rufinus had failed to extinguish his hope
of winning her at last. This very morning, in the course of the
discussion as to the stewardship of her fortune, Paula had been ready and
glad to accept him as her Kyrios--her legal protector and representative;
but he now thought that he could perceive by various signs that his
venerable friend was right: that the rod had been reversed, and that
aversion had been transformed to love in the girl's heart. The anguish of
this discovery was hard to bear. And yet Paula had never shown him such
hearty warmth of manner, never had she spoken to him in a voice so soft
and so full of feeling, as this evening in the garden. More cheerful and
talkative than usual, she had constantly turned to address him, while he
had felt his pain and torment of mind gradually eased, till in him too,
sentiment had blossomed anew, and his intellectual power had expanded.
Never--so he believed--had he expressed his thoughts better or more
brilliantly than in that hour. Nor had she withheld her approval; she had
heartily agreed with his views; and when, half an hour before midnight,
he had gone with her to visit his patients, ra