The warmth and softness of her hands under the pressure of his happy lips was still with him.

It would be infidelity to his own feelings to renounce her then.

It was becoming a physical impossibility for him to accept this other woman.
He hesitated and reddened.

An old subterfuge occurred to him at a desperate minute.
"I--I am Hesper--of Ephesus," he essayed.
"What is thy business with Philadelphus ?" the woman persisted.
Again the Maccabee floundered.

It had been easy to invent a story to keep the woman he loved from discovering that he was a married man, but the point in question was different.