mmanding, over and above the average Jewish woman in
stature and in line. She was an aristocrat in social caste; she was an
aristocrat by nature. All her ways were large ways, generous ways. She
had brain, she had wit, and, above all, she had womanliness. As you
shall see, it was her womanliness that betrayed her and me in they end.
Brunette, olive-skinned, oval-faced, her hair was blue-black with its
blackness and her eyes were twin wells of black. Never were more
pronounced types of blonde and brunette in man and woman met than in us.

And we met on the instant. There was no self-discussion, no waiting,
wavering, to make certain. She was mine the moment I looked upon her.
And by the same token she knew that I belonged to her above all men. I
strode to her. She half-lifted from her couch as if drawn upward to me.
And then we looked with all our eyes, blue eyes and black, until Pilate's
wife, a thin, tense, overwrought woman, laughed nervously. And while I
bowed to the wife and gave greeting, I thought I saw Pilate give Miriam a
significant glance, as if to say, "Is he not all I promised?" For he had
had word of my coming from Sulpicius Quirinius, the legate of Syria. As
well had Pilate and I been known to each other before ever he journeyed
out to be procurator over the Semitic volcano of Jerusalem.

Much talk we had that night, especially Pilate, who spoke in detail of
the local situation, and who seemed lonely and desirous to share his
anxieties with some one and even to bid for counsel. Pilate was of the
solid type of Roman, with sufficient imagination intelligently to enforce
the iron policy of Rome, and not unduly excitable under stress.

But on this night it was plain that he was worried. The Jews had got on
his nerves. They were too volcanic, spasmodic, eruptive. And further,
they were subtle. The Romans had a straight, forthright way of going
about anything. The Jews never approached anything directly, save
backwards, when they were driven by compulsion. Left to themselves, they
always approached by indirection. Pilate's irritation was due, as he
explained, to the fact that the Jews were ever intriguing to make him,
and through him Rome, the catspaw in the matter of their religious
dissensions. As was well known to me, Rome did not interfere with the
religious notions of its conquered peoples; but the Jews were for ever
confusing the issues and giving a political cast to purely unpolitical