“How else?” said the other roughly.  “You stick to your way, I will go mine.  You can find a better steward for the estate—­I go to-morrow.  May the earth open and swallow me up if I stay one hour longer than is absolutely necessary in this demented place.  And after all Mary is your mother and not mine.”

“But she was your father’s wife,” retorted Marcus.

“Certainly, or you would not be my brother.  But she—­I have amply repaid any kindness she ever did me by ten years of service.  We do not understand each other and we never shall.”

“Yes, yes, you will indeed.  I have been in church and prayed—­nay, do not laugh—­I prayed to the Lord that he would make it all work right and He—­well, you have been baptized and made one of His flock.”

“To my misfortune!  You drive me frantic with your meek and mild ways,” cried the other passionately.  “My own feet are strong enough for me to stand on and my hand, though it is horny, can carry out what my brain thinks right.”

“No, no, Demetrius, no.  You see, you believe in the old gods. . .”

“Certainly,” said the other with increasing irritation.  “You are merely talking to the winds, and my time is precious.  I must pack up my small possessions, and for your sake I will say a few words of farewell when I take the account-books to your mother.  I have land enough belonging to myself alone, at Arsinoe; I know my own business and am tired of letting a woman meddle and mar it.  Good-bye for the present, youngster.  Tell your mother I am coming; I shall be with her in just an hour.”

“Demetrius!” cried the lad trying once more to detain his brother; but Demetrius freed himself with a powerful wrench and hurried across the court-yard—­gay with flowers and with a fountain in the middle—­into which the apartments of the family opened, his own among the number.

Marcus looked after him sadly; they differed too widely in thought and feeling ever to understand each other completely, and when they stood side by side no one would have imagined that they were the sons of one father, for even in appearance they were strongly dissimilar.  Marcus was slight and delicate, Demetrius, on the contrary, broad-shouldered and large-boned.

After this parting from his half-brother Marcus betook himself to the women’s rooms where Mary, after superintending the spinning and other work of the slave-girls, in the rooms at the back, was wont to sit during the evening.  He found his mother in eager conversation with a Christian priest of advanced age, an imposing personage of gentle and dignified aspect.  The widow, though past forty, might still pass for a handsome woman:  it was from her that her son had inherited his tall, thin figure with narrow shoulders and a slight stoop, his finely-cut features, white skin and soft, flowing, raven-black hair.  Their resemblance was rendered all the more striking by the fact that each wore a simple, narrow circlet of gold-round the head; nay it would have seemed some unusual trick of Nature’s but that their eyes were quite unlike.  Hers were black, and their gaze was shrewd and sharp and sometimes sternly hard; while the dreamy lustre of her son’s, which were blue, lent his face an almost feminine softness.