Chapter 7

‘Forgive me, my child,’ he said softly. ‘Now—you tell me as much, or as little, as you want me to know. I shall respect your confidence.’

‘It may shorten my story, sir, if you tell me how much you already know of it.’

David complied. Some eighteen years ago, while a student in Athens, chiefly concerned with contemporary political movements, he had been obliged to inform himself about the unprecedented alliance of the Jews and Arabians, who hoped their united strength might discourage a Roman invasion. A royal wedding had been arranged to confirm this pact. Antipas had married the Arabian Princess—and shamefully mistreated her. There was a child, a little girl.

‘I never learned her name,’ David was saying.

‘It wouldn’t be Esther?’ she ventured, without looking up.

‘Not likely.’ He pretended to be debating the matter. ‘Esther is definitely Jewish, and by the time this baby was born her Arabian mother would hardly have wanted any more reminders of her unhappy life in Jewry.’

‘That is true, sir. My name is Fara.’ After a lengthy pause she added, ‘But perhaps you had better continue to call me Esther.’

David nodded his approval of that decision. She was much safer in Galilee with a Jewish name, he said.

‘By the way,’ he continued, ‘do you want to tell me what brings you here? Surely you have no thought of restoring relations with your father.’

She shook her head slowly; and, after some deliberation, said, ‘I shall tell you—everything, Master David.’

And she did. It was a long story, but David did not often break into it with queries or comments. When she had told him about Ione’s insistence that she learn Greek, his eyes lighted and he interrupted her to say: ‘Excellent! It has been a long time since I have conversed in that beautiful language.’

‘It will please me, too,’ she replied; and David smiled happily at her evident relief in abandoning her imperfect Aramaic for the more musical tongue in which she felt at home. From there on, she proceeded with more self-confidence, David watching her lips with delight. The effortless shift to Greek had given the girl a new freedom that added much to her charm.

As she came to the end of her story, however, the old lawyer made a long face and shook his head.