Not only had he never himself done a base or a mean action; he loathed it in another, and the only thing he could do to render Paula's perfidy harmless was, as he could not deny, original and bold, but at the same time detestable and shameful.
Still, he could not and he would not succumb in this struggle.

Time pressed.

Long reflection was impossible; suddenly he felt carried away by a fierce and mad longing to fight it out--he felt as he had felt on a race-day in the hippodrome, when he had driven his own quadriga ahead of all the rest.
Onwards, then, onwards; and if the chariot were wrecked, if the horses were killed, if his wheels maimed his comrades overthrown in the arena-still, onwards, onwards! A few hasty steps brought him to the lodge of the gate-keeper, a sturdy old man who had held his post for forty years.

He had formerly been a locksmith and it still was part of his duty to undertake the repairs of the simple household utensils.

Orion as a youth had been a beautiful and engaging boy and a great favorite with this worthy man; he had delighted in sitting in his little room and handing him the tools for his work.
He himself had remarkable mechanical facility and had been the old man's apt pupil; nay, he had made such progress as to be able to carve pretty little boxes, prayer-book cases, and such like, and provide them with locks, as gifts to his parents on their birth days--a festival always kept with peculiar solemnity in Egypt, and marked by giving and receiving presents.