"I almost envy you your acquaintance with this favorite of the gods; but
you might, it seems to me, postpone the work of salvation. You were away
from Alexandria for half a year, and if she could hold out so long as
that . . ."

"Do not speak so; you ought not to speak so!" cried Marcus, pressing his
hand on his heart as though in physical pain. "But I have no time to
lose, for I must at once find out where the old singer has taken her. I
am not so inexperienced as you seem to think. He has brought her here to
trade in her beauty, and enrich himself. Why, you, too, saw her on board
ship; I, as you know, had arranged for them to be taken in at my mother's
Xenodochium."

"Whom?" asked Demetrius folding his hands.

"The singers whom I brought with me from Ostia. And now they have
disappeared from thence, and Dada . . ."

"Dada!" cried Demetrius, bursting into a loud laugh without heeding
Marcus who stepped up to him, crimson with rage. "Dada! that little
fair puss! You see her day and night and an angel calls upon you to save
that child's merry soul? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, boy! Why,
what shall I wager now? I will stake this roll of gold that I could make
her come with me to-morrow--with me, a hard-featured countryman, freckled
all over like a plover's egg, where my clothes do not protect my skin,
and with hair on end like the top of a broom--yes, that she will follow
me to Arsinoe or wherever I choose to bid her. Let the hussy go, you
simple innocent. Such a Soul as hers is of small account even in a less
exclusive Heaven than yours is."