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She longed to leap over the hedge she could have rushed into the house and flung herself between Paula and Orion. Still, there she sat; restless but without moving; wholly under the dominion of evil thoughts, among which a good one rarely and timidly intruded, with her eyes fixed on Rufinus' dwelling. It stood in the broad sunshine as silent as death, as if all were sleeping.
The character of Theodosius imposed on his minister the task of hypocrisy, which disguised, and sometimes restrained, the abuse of power; and Rufinus was apprehensive of disturbing the indolent slumber of a prince still capable of exerting the abilities and the virtue, which had raised him to the throne.
The extreme parsimony of Rufinus left him only the reproach and envy of ill-gotten wealth; his dependants served him without attachment; the universal hatred of mankind was repressed only by the influence of servile fear.
"Give me four more legs in addition to my own two, or a machine to make time longer than it is, and then I will take new patients-otherwise no! Tell the fellow. . . ." "No, not sick. . . ." interrupted the negro. "Come long way. Gardener to Greek man Rufinus." Philippus started: he could guess what this messenger had to say, and his heart sank with dread as he desired that he might be shown in.
However, there was no choice, and she succeeded in proving that she had never quitted Memphis nor the house of Rufinus at the time when the Arab warriors met their death between Athribis and Doomiat.
Rufinus laid his left hand on the young man's shoulder, and his right hand on his head, saying, "Then take with you, to begin with, an old man's a father's blessing." "Yes, a father's," repeated Orion softly. A happy thrill ran through his body and soul, and he fell on the old man's neck deeply moved.
The words rushed up from the very bottom of her heart, and Orion, with a sigh of relief, followed the old man, glad and comforted. The study was lighted up, and there, without mentioning Katharina, he told Rufinus of the patriarch's scheme for dispersing the nuns of St. Cecilia. What could he care for these Melchite sisters?
"I owe him, in the first place, friendly trust," was Paula's whispered reply, and the abbess answered: But you owe yourself firmness and caution." Rufinus was the last; his wife and daughter clung around him still. "Take example from that poor girl," cried the old man, clasping his wife in his arms.
She excludes her devoted husband from the inheritance in favour of her most unfilial son? Nay, it is not her son to whom she leaves her fortune; she leaves it rather to the greedy Aemilianus and the matchmaking Rufinus and that drunken gang, that hang about you and prey upon you. Take it, O best of sons! Lay aside your mother's love-letters for a while and read her will instead.
It was not yet dark when he stopped at the house of Rufinus. His heart had not beat so high for many a day. "I feel as if I had come courting," said he, laughing at himself. "Well, and I really am come to propose an alliance for the rest of my life! Still, curiosity, one would think, might be shed with the hair and the teeth!"
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