would have preferred her fine tall Polykarp--whose roses and flaming
glances she blamed in all sincerity--to this shaggy, wild-looking
graybeard.

Quite otherwise thought the centurion. He was quite ready to believe in
the anchorite's confession, for the more unworthy the man for whom Sirona
had broken faith, the greater seemed her guilt, and the more unpardonable
her levity; and to his man's vanity it seemed to him easier--particularly
in the presence of such witnesses as Petrus and Dorothea--to bear the
fact that his wife should have sought variety and pleasure at any cost,
even at that of devoting herself to a ragged beggar, than that she should
have given her affections to a younger, handsomer, and worthier man than
himself. He had sinned much against her, but all that lay like feathers
on his side of the scales, while that which she had done weighed down
hers like a load of lead. He began to feel like a man who, in wading
through a bog, has gained firm ground with one foot, and all these
feelings gave him energy to walk up to the anchorite with a self-control,
of which he was not generally master, excepting when on duty at the head
of his soldiers.

He approached the Alexandrian with an assumption of dignity and a
demeanor which testified to his formerly having taken part in the
representations of tragedies in the theatres of great cities. Paulus,
on his part, did not retreat by a single step, but looked at him with a
smile that alarmed Petrus and the rest of the bystanders. The law put
the anchorite absolutely into the power of the outraged husband, but
Phoebicius did not seem disposed to avail himself of his rights, and
nothing but contempt and loathing were perceptible in his tone, as he
said: