He gazed at her, apparently unconscious of the desperation in the face
lifted to him. The slow smile that presently grew again in his eyes
was none the less unthoughted. He slipped his hand under a strand of
her rich hair that had fallen and drew it out, slowly, at full length.
Slowly his eyes followed it as inch by inch it slipped through his
fingers. Old memories seemed to struggle to the surface; old
tendernesses; recollection of pure hours and holy things; paganism
dropped from him like a husk and the spiritual hauteur of a Jew
brought the expression of the unhumbled house of Judah into his face.
Through a notch in the hills a golden beam shot from the sun and
penetrating this inwalled valley lay like an illuminating fire on the
man's face and glorified it. Laodice's breath stopped.
Slowly his fingers slipped along the fine silken length of that
shining strand until his arm extended to the full; and the end of the
lock yet rested on her breast. Thus might have been the hair of that
Rahab, who was no less a patriot because she was frail; thus, the hair
of Bathsheba, who was the mother of the wisest Israelite though she
sinned; thus the hair of that mother of Samson, who slew armies
single-handed! Badge of Judah, mark of the haughty strength of the
oldest enlightenment in the world! He would not initiate his succor of
Israel with violence against its purest type.
He smiled slowly; slowly let the strand fall through his fingers. He
looked into her eyes and she saw a sudden light immeasurably
compassionate and tender grow there. A weakness swept over her; she
felt that she had been longing for that light. Then he rose quickly
and moved away.
Old Momus, the mute, with his head on his knees slept on.
Julian, who had been halted involuntarily by the attitude of his
companion and had been an amazed witness of this extraordinary end of
the incident, looked at Philadelphus' face in frank stupefaction. But
Philadelphus laid a hand so forceful and compelling on his companion's
shoulder that it left the pink print of his fingers on the flesh,
turned him toward the horses and led him away.
"We will breakfast farther on," he said.
A moment and they were swinging down the stony side of the hill toward
the east, and Laodice, with her hand clutching her excited heart, had
not thought of flinging herself upon Momus. She raised herself
gradually to watch them as far as she could see, and her fixed and
stunned gaze rested with immense homesickness and longing on the
taller man radiant against the background of a risen sun.