Part 100 (1/2)
With her there was no fear of light.
The servant left the two alone.
In the excitement occasioned by the events of the few days past Ben-Hur had scarcely given a thought to the fair Egyptian. If she came to his mind at all, it was merely as a briefest pleasure, a suggestion of a delight which could wait for him, and was waiting.
But now the influence of the woman revived with all its force the instant Ben-Hur beheld her. He advanced to her eagerly, but stopped and gazed. Such a change he had never seen!
Theretofore she had been a lover studious to win him--in manner all warmth, each glance an admission, each action an avowal. She had showered him with incense of flattery. While he was present, she had impressed him with her admiration; going away, he carried the impression with him to remain a delicious expectancy hastening his return. It was for him the painted eyelids drooped lowest over the l.u.s.trous almond eyes; for him the love-stories caught from the professionals abounding in the streets of Alexandria were repeated with emphasis and lavishment of poetry; for him endless exclamations of sympathy, and smiles, and little privileges with hand and hair and cheek and lips, and songs of the Nile, and displays of jewelry, and subtleties of lace in veils and scarfs, and other subtleties not less exquisite in flosses of Indian silk. The idea, old as the oldest of peoples, that beauty is the reward of the hero had never such realism as she contrived for his pleasure; insomuch that he could not doubt he was her hero; she avouched it in a thousand artful ways as natural with her as her beauty--winsome ways reserved, it would seem, by the pa.s.sionate genius of old Egypt for its daughters.
Such the Egyptian had been to Ben-Hur from the night of the boat-ride on the lake in the Orchard of Palms. But now!
Elsewhere in this volume the reader may have observed a term of somewhat indefinite meaning used reverently in a sacred connection; we repeat it now with a general application. There are few persons who have not a double nature, the real and the acquired; the latter a kind of addendum resulting from education, which in time often perfects it into a part of the being as unquestionable as the first.
Leaving the thought to the thoughtful, we proceed to say that now the real nature of the Egyptian made itself manifest.
It was not possible for her to have received a stranger with repulsion more incisive; yet she was apparently as pa.s.sionless as a statue, only the small head was a little tilted, the nostrils a little drawn, and the sensuous lower lip pushed the upper the least bit out of its natural curvature.
She was the first to speak.
”Your coming is timely, O son of Hur,” she said, in a voice sharply distinct. ”I wish to thank you for hospitality; after to-morrow I may not have the opportunity to do so.”
Ben-Hur bowed slightly without taking his eyes from her.
”I have heard of a custom which the dice-players observe with good result among themselves,” she continued. ”When the game is over, they refer to their tablets and cast up their accounts; then they libate the G.o.ds and put a crown upon the happy winner. We have had a game--it has lasted through many days and nights. Why, now that it is at an end, shall not we see to which the chaplet belongs?”
Yet very watchful, Ben-Hur answered, lightly, ”A man may not balk a woman bent on having her way.”
”Tell me,” she continued, inclining her head, and permitting the sneer to become positive--”tell me, O prince of Jerusalem, where is he, that son of the carpenter of Nazareth, and son not less of G.o.d, from whom so lately such mighty things were expected?”
He waved his hand impatiently, and replied, ”I am not his keeper.”
The beautiful head sank forward yet lower.
”Has he broken Rome to pieces?”
Again, but with anger, Ben-Hur raised his hand in deprecation.
”Where has he seated his capital?” she proceeded. ”Cannot I go see his throne and its lions of bronze? And his palace--he raised the dead; and to such a one, what is it to raise a golden house?
He has but to stamp his foot and say the word, and the house is, pillared like Karnak, and wanting nothing.”
There was by this time slight ground left to believe her playing; the questions were offensive, and her manner pointed with unfriendliness; seeing which, he on his side became more wary, and said, with good humor, ”O Egypt, let us wait another day, even another week, for him, the lions, and the palace.”
She went on without noticing the suggestion.
”And how is it I see you in that garb? Such is not the habit of governors in India or vice-kings elsewhere. I saw the satrap of Teheran once, and he wore a turban of silk and a cloak of cloth of gold, and the hilt and scabbard of his sword made me dizzy with their splendor of precious stones. I thought Osiris had lent him a glory from the sun. I fear you have not entered upon your kingdom--the kingdom I was to share with you.”
”The daughter of my wise guest is kinder than she imagines herself; she is teaching me that Isis may kiss a heart without making it better.”
Ben-Hur spoke with cold courtesy, and Iras, after playing with the pendent solitaire of her necklace of coins, rejoined, ”For a Jew, the son of Hur is clever. I saw your dreaming Caesar make his entry into Jerusalem. You told us he would that day proclaim himself King of the Jews from the steps of the Temple. I beheld the procession descend the mountain bringing him. I heard their singing. They were beautiful with palms in motion. I looked everywhere among them for a figure with a promise of royalty--a horseman in purple, a chariot with a driver in s.h.i.+ning bra.s.s, a stately warrior behind an orbed s.h.i.+eld, rivalling his spear in stature. I looked for his guard.
It would have been pleasant to have seen a prince of Jerusalem and a cohort of the legions of Galilee.”