THE SPREAD NET Beginning with the moment that the Maccabee first entered her hall, Amaryllis struggled with a perplexity.

Certain discrepancies in the hastily concocted story which that stern compelling stranger who had called himself Hesper of Ephesus had told had started into life a doubt so feeble that it was little more than a sensation.
Love and its signs had been a lifelong study to her; she knew its stubbornness; she was wise in the judgment of human nature to know that love in this stranger was no light thing to be dislodged.

And to finish the sum of her perplexities, she felt in her own heart the kindling of a sorrowful longing to be preferred by a spirit strong, forceful and magnetic as was that of the man who had called himself Hesper of Ephesus.
With the egotism of the courtezan she summarized her charms.

Even there were spirits in that fleshly land of Judea to whom the delicate refinement of her beauty, the reserve of her bearing and the power of her mentality had appealed more strongly than a mere opulence of physical attraction.

She had her ambitions; not the least of these was to be loved by an understanding nature.