He had come to fetch her, cost him what it might, and to carry her away to his country-home, near Arsinoe on the coast.  It was not that he had any mad desire to make her his own, but that he thought it his most urgent duty to preserve his inexperienced brother from the danger into which his foolish passion for the little singing-girl was certain to plunge him.  A purse full of gold, and a necklace of turquoise and diamonds, which he had purchased from a jeweller in the Jews’ quarter for a sum for which he had often sold a ship-load of corn or a whole cellar full of wine or oil, were to supplement his proposals; and he went straight to the point, asking the girl simply and plainly to leave her friends and accompany him to Arsinoe.  When she asked him, in much astonishment, “What to do there?” he told her he wanted a cheerful companion; he had taken a fancy to her saucy little nose, and though he could not flatter himself that he had ever found favor in her eyes he had brought something with him which she would certainly like, and which might help him to win her kindness.  He was not niggardly, and if this—­ and this—­and he displayed the sparkling necklace and laid the purse on her pillow—­could please her she might regard them as an earnest of more, as much more as she chose, for his pockets were deep.

Dada did not interrupt him, for the growing indignation with which she heard him took away her breath.  This fresh humiliation was beyond the bounds of endurance; and when at last she recovered her powers of speech and action, she flung the purse off the divan, and as it fell clattering on the floor, she kicked it away as far as possible, as though it were plague-tainted.  Then, standing upright in front of her suitor, she exclaimed: 

“Shame upon you all!  You thought that because I am a poor girl, a singing-girl, and because you have filthy gold...  Your brother Marcus would never have done such a thing, I am very sure!...  And you, a horrid peasant!. . .  If you ever dare set foot on this vessel again, Karnis and Orpheus shall drive you away as if you were a thief or an assassin!  Eternal Gods! what is it that I have done, that everyone thinks I must be wicked?  Eternal Gods . . .”

And she burst into loud spasmodic sobs and vanished down the steps that led below.

Demetrius called after her in soothing words and tones, but she would not listen.  Then he sent down the slave to beg Dada to grant him a hearing, but the only answer he received was an order to quit the barge at once.

He obeyed, and as he picked up the purse he thought to himself: 

“I may buy ship and vineyard back again; but I would send four more after those if I could undo this luckless deed.  If I were a better and a worthier man, I might not so easily give others credit for being evil and unworthy.”

CHAPTER IX.