Chapter 2

After a few weeks of earnest but unsuccessful endeavours to accommodate herself to the mores of Rome, Arnon gave up trying and begged Antipas to excuse her from further attendance at banquets.

‘And am I to spend my evenings at home, then?’ he demanded testily. ‘Is it your idea that I should live the life of a hermit in a cave?’

There was only one reasonable answer to that. Arnon assured him that he was quite free to go alone, whenever and wherever he pleased; which he did. It was not long before they were seeing very little of each other, making no effort to repair their estrangement.

One evening in early autumn when Arnon was about to sit down to a solitary dinner, Philip surprised her by calling. She insisted upon his dining with her, and he seemed glad to accept. She found it easy to talk with Philip, whose reticence everybody mistook for stupidity. It was not long before the conversation was becoming quite personal—by mutual consent, for they were both lonely. Arnon’s life in Rome, Philip was saying, must have turned out to be very tiresome. Tiresome, said Arnon, wasn’t the word she would have used, but it was at least that.

‘Sometimes,’ declared Philip dreamily, ‘I can hardly endure it. I have often thought of running away—to Sicily, perhaps, to live alone’—he seemed talking to himself now, with eyes half closed—’in the country, in a little house, on a green hillside, with fruits and flowers to cultivate, trees, grass, sunsets, and a friendly dog or two.’

‘But would you be happy—without your family?’ asked Arnon, when he had ended.

‘I have no family,’ he muttered. ‘Herodias is never at home. I do not ask where she spends her time.’

‘Why don’t you?’ ventured Arnon. ‘She is your wife.’

‘For the same reason that you do not ask Antipas where he spends his time,’ said Philip. He chuckled unpleasantly. ‘I dare say that if we inquired of their present whereabouts we would find them in the same place.’

‘You mean—they are often together?’

‘They are always together! And if I were you, Arnon, I should leave for Arabia at once—before this scandal humiliates you—and your people.’

Arnon’s heart beat hard and her throat hurt.

‘I think that was why you came to see me tonight,’ she said weakly. ‘You thought it was high time for me to know.’

Philip nodded, without meeting her eyes.

‘Everyone else knows,’ he said. ‘Why shouldn’t you?’