The house which Pelagia and the Amal had hired after their return to Alexandria, was one of the most splendid in the city.

They had been now living there three months or more, and in that time Pelagia's taste had supplied the little which it needed to convert it into a paradise of lazy luxury.

She herself was wealthy; and her Gothic guests, overburdened with Roman spoils, the very use of which they could not understand, freely allowed her and her nymphs to throw away for them the treasures which they had won in many a fearful fight.

What matter?
If they had enough to eat, and more than enough to drink, how could the useless surplus of their riches be better spent than in keeping their ladies in good humour ?....

And when it was all gone....they would go somewhere or other--who cared whither ?--and win more.