“Again you have overstepped the boundary within which we can possibly understand each other.  In my opinion you are hardly old enough to undertake the salvation of the imperilled souls of pretty women.  Take care what you are about, youngster!  It is safe enough to go into the water with those who can swim, but those who sink are apt to draw you down with them.  You are a good-looking young fellow, you have money and fine horses, and there are women enough who are only too ready to spread their nets abroad. . .”

“What are you thinking of?” cried Marcus passionately.  “It is I who am the fisher—­a fisher of souls, and so every true believer ought to be.  She—­she is innocence and simplicity itself, in spite of her roguish sauciness.  But she has fallen into the hands of a reprobate heathen, and here, where vice prowls about the city like a roaring lion, she will be lost—­lost, if I do not rescue her.  Twice have I seen her in my dreams; once close to the cavern of a raging dragon, and again on the edge of a precipitous cliff, and each time an angel called out to me and bid me save her from the jaws of the monster, and from falling into the abyss.  Since then I seem to see her constantly; at meals, when I am in company, when I am driving,—­and I always hear the warning voice of the angel.  And now I feel it a sacred duty to save her—­a creature on whom the Almighty has lavished every gift he ever bestowed on the daughters of Eve—­to lead her into the path of Salvation.”

Demetrius had listened to his brother’s enthusiastic speech with growing anxiety, but he merely shrugged his shoulders and said: 

“I almost envy you your acquaintance with this favorite of the gods; but you might, it seems to me, postpone the work of salvation.  You were away from Alexandria for half a year, and if she could hold out so long as that . . .”

“Do not speak so; you ought not to speak so!” cried Marcus, pressing his hand on his heart as though in physical pain.  “But I have no time to lose, for I must at once find out where the old singer has taken her.  I am not so inexperienced as you seem to think.  He has brought her here to trade in her beauty, and enrich himself.  Why, you, too, saw her on board ship; I, as you know, had arranged for them to be taken in at my mother’s Xenodochium.”

“Whom?” asked Demetrius folding his hands.

“The singers whom I brought with me from Ostia.  And now they have disappeared from thence, and Dada . . .”

“Dada!” cried Demetrius, bursting into a loud laugh without heeding Marcus who stepped up to him, crimson with rage.  “Dada! that little fair puss!  You see her day and night and an angel calls upon you to save that child’s merry soul?  You ought to be ashamed of yourself, boy!  Why, what shall I wager now?  I will stake this roll of gold that I could make her come with me to-morrow—­with me, a hard-featured countryman, freckled all over like a plover’s egg, where my clothes do not protect my skin, and with hair on end like the top of a broom—­yes, that she will follow me to Arsinoe or wherever I choose to bid her.  Let the hussy go, you simple innocent.  Such a Soul as hers is of small account even in a less exclusive Heaven than yours is.”