sun; she did not dare use a parasol or a hat for fear of being seen. The
shade cast by the shrubs was but scanty, the noontide heat was torment;
still, though minute followed minute and one-quarter of an hour after
another crept by at a snail's pace, she was far too much excited to be
sleepy. She needed no dial to tell her the time; she knew exactly how
late it was as one shadow stole to this point and another to that, and,
by risking the danger to her eyes of glancing up at the sun, she could
make doubly sure.

It was now within three-quarters of an hour of noon, and in that house
all was as still as before; the Patriarch, however, might be expected to
be punctual, and she had done nothing towards dressing but putting on
those gilt sandals. This brought her to swift decision she hurried to
her room, desired the maid not to dress her hair, contenting herself with
pinning a few roses into its natural curls. Then, in fierce haste, she
made her throw on her sea-green dress of bombyx silk edged with fine
embroidery, and fasten her peplos with the first pins that came to hand;
and when the snap of her bracelet of costly sapphires broke, as she
herself was fastening it, she flung it back among her other trinkets as
she might have tossed an unripe apple back upon a heap. She slipped her
little hand into a gold spiral which curled round half her arm, and
gathered up the rest of her jewels, to put them on out of doors as she
sat watching. The waiting-woman was ordered to come for her at noon with
the flowers for the Patriarch, and, in a quarter of an hour after leaving
her lurking place, she was back there again. Just in time;--for while
she was putting on the trinkets Nilus came out, followed by some slaves
with several leather bags which they replaced in the chariot. Then the
treasurer stepped in and with him Philippus, and the vehicle drove away.

"So Paula has entrusted her property to Orion again," thought Katharina.