more than an amusing wrestling match, in which to display her strength,
to him it was a matter in which his heart was engaged.

Damia and Porphyrius took a vain pleasure in their eager discussions, and
clapped with delight, as though it were a game of skill, when Gorgo
laughingly checkmated her excited opponent with some unanswerable
argument.

But there came a day when Constantine discovered that his eager defence
of that which to him was high and holy, was, to his hearers, no more than
a subject of mockery, and henceforth the lad, now fast growing to
manhood, kept away from the merchant's house. Still, Gorgo could always
win him back again, and sometimes, when they were alone together, the old
strife would be renewed, and more seriously and bitterly than of old.
But while he loved her, she also loved him, and when he had so far
mastered himself as to remain away for any length of time she wore
herself out with longing to see him. They felt that they belonged to
each other, but they also felt that an insuperable gulf yawned between
them, and that whenever they attempted to clasp hands across the abyss a
mysterious and irresistible impulse drove them to open it wider, and to
dig it deeper by fresh discussions, till at last Constantine could not
endure that she, of all people, should mock at his Holy of Holies and
drag it in the dust.

He must go--he must leave Gorgo, quit Alexandria, cost what it might.
The travellers' tales that he had heard from the captains of trading-
vessels and ships of war who frequented his father's house had filled him
with a love of danger and enterprise, and a desire to see distant lands
and foreign peoples. His father's business, for which he was intended,
did not attract him. Away--away--he would go away; and a happy