The council looked after him with divided feelings.  They were here confronted by riddles that were hard to solve.  No one of them felt that he had a right to doubt the good intentions of their lord’s son, whom they looked up to as a talented and high-minded youth.  His dispute with Paula had struck them painfully, and each one asked himself how it was that such a favorite with women should have failed to rouse any sentiment but that of hatred in one of the handsomest of her sex.  The marked hostility she displayed to Orion injured her cause in the eyes of her judges, who knew only too well how unpleasant her relations were with Neforis.  It was more than audacious in her to accuse the Mukaukas’ son of having broken open her trunk; only hatred could have prompted her to utter such a charge.  Still, there was something in her demeanor which encouraged confidence in her assertions, and if Katharina could really testify to having seen the empty medallion on the chain there would be no alternative but to begin the enquiry again from a fresh point of view, and to inculpate another robber.  But who could have lavished such a treasure as this gem in exchange for mere rubbish?  It was inconceivable; Ammonius the mechanician was right when he said that a woman full of hatred was capable of anything, even the incredible and impossible.

Meanwhile it was growing dusk and the scorching day had turned to the tempered heat of a glorious evening.  The Mukaukas was still in his room while his wife with Susannah and her daughter, Mary and her governess, were enjoying the air and chatting in the open hall looking out on the garden and the Nile.  The ladies had covered their heads with gauze veils as a protection against the mosquitoes, which were attracted in swarms from the river by the lights, and also against the mists that rose from the shallowing Nile; they were in the act of drinking some cooling fruit-syrup which had just been brought in, when Orion made his appearance.

“What has happened?” cried his mother in some anxiety, for she concluded from his dishevelled hair and heated cheeks that the meeting had gone anything rather than smoothly.

“Incredible things,” he replied.  “Paula fought like a lioness for her father’s freedman. . .”

“Simply to annoy us and put us in a difficulty,” replied Neforis.

“No, no, Mother,” replied Orion with some warmth.  “But she has a will of iron; a woman who never pauses at anything when she wants to carry her point; and at the same time she goes to work with a keen wit that is worthy of the greatest lawyer that I ever heard defend a cause in the high court of the capital.  Besides this her air of superiority, and her divine beauty turn the heads of our poor household officers.  It is fine and noble, of course, to be so zealous in the cause of a servant; but it can do no good, for the evidence against her stammering favorite is overwhelming, and when her last plea is demolished the matter is ended.  She says that she showed a necklace to the child, and to you, charming Katharina.”