He nodded, and with such a blissful smile that she felt as though a
sunbeam had shone into her very soul. He noticed this at once, raised
his goblet, and drank to her, exclaiming with a flush on his cheek:

"The joy that comes to others early has come to me late; but then the
woman I call my friend is matchless!"

"Well, it is to be hoped she may not prove to be so wicked as you just
now described her.--If only our alliance is not fated to end soon and
abruptly."

"Ah!" cried the physician, "every drop of blood in my veins......"

"You would be ready to shed it for me," Paula broke in, with a pathetic
gesture, borrowed from a great tragedian she had seen at the theatre in
Damascus. "But never fear: it will not be a matter of life and death--
at worst they will but turn me out of the house and of Memphis."

"You?" cried Philippus startled, "but who would dare to do so?"

"They who still regard me as a stranger.--You described the case
admirably. If they have their way, my dear new friend, our fate will be
like that of the learned Dionysius of Cyrene."

"Of Cyrene?"

"Yes. It was my father who told me the story. When Dionysius sent his
son to the High School at Athens, he sat down to write a treatise for him
on all the things a student should do and avoid. He devoted himself to
the task with the utmost diligence; but when, at the end of four years,