“Why do you hate the Englishman?  To my mind it is lucky for both of you that this Englishman saw her.  There are not men so rich as the English, and he is a rich Englishman.  You are lucky.”

“I hate him.”

“Because he has stolen your wife’s love?” Madam Marx, as she put the question, laid her fat hand upon Gregorio’s shoulder and laughed confidently.  The movement irritated him, but he never tried to resist her now.

“No, not quite that.  I’m used to it, and the money more than compensates me.  But I hated the man when I first saw him in the Paradise.  There was a fiddler-woman he talked to, and he could scarcely make himself understood.  He had money, and he gave her champagne and flowers.  And I was starving, and the woman was beautiful.”

Madam tapped his cheek and smiled.

“The woman can’t interest you now.  Also you have money—­his money.”

“Still I hate him.”

“You Greeks are like children.  Your hatred is unreasonable; there is no cause for it.”

“Unreasonable and not to be reasoned away.”

“Well, why worry about him?  He won’t follow you to Benhur, I fancy.”

“It doesn’t worry me generally; but when you mention him my hate springs up again.  I forget him when I am by myself.”

“Forget him now.”

And they drank coffee in silence.

Darkness came on, and the blue night mist.  Gregorio was impatient to see his son.  He gazed intently at the door of the opposite house, little heeding madam, who was busy with preparations for the evening’s entertainment of her customers.  Suddenly he saw a woman leave the house, hail a passing carriage, and drive rapidly down the street toward the Place Mehemet Ali.  Gregorio, with a cry of pleasure, rose and left the cafe.  Madam Marx followed him to the door and called a good-night to him.  Gregorio stood irresolutely in the middle of the road.  He had promised the boy a boat, and he blamed himself for having forgotten to buy it.  Grumbling at his forgetfulness, he hurried along the street, determined to waste no time.  On occasions he could relinquish his lazy, slouching gait, and he would hurry always to obey the commands of the king his son.  A pleasant smile at the thought of the pleasure his present would cause softened the sinister mould of his lips, and he sang softly to himself as he moved quickly cityward.

Before he had gone many yards an oath broke in upon the music, and he darted swiftly under the shadow of a wall; for coming forward him was Amos the Jew.  But the old man’s sharp eyes detected the victim, and, following Gregorio into his hiding-place, Amos laid his hand upon the Greek.

“Why do you try to hide when we have so much to say to one another?”

Gregorio shook himself from the Jew’s touch and professed ignorance of the necessity for speech.

“Come, come, my friend, the money you borrowed is still owing in part.”