ll as upon you. As for the open door, it was
closed yesterday. The thieves of whom you spoke spoiled her pleasure in
granting hospitality. Antyllus forced himself with noisy impetuosity into
her house. This made her dread still more unprecedented conduct in the
future. In a few hours she will be on the way to Irenia. I am glad for
Caesarion's sake, and still more for his mother's, whom we have wronged
by forgetting so long for another."

"To think that we should be forced to do so!" cried Iras excitedly--"
now, at this hour, when every drop of blood, every thought of this poor
brain should belong to the Queen! Yet it could not be avoided. Cleopatra
is returning to us with a heart bleeding from a hundred wounds, and it is
terrible to think that a new arrow must strike her as soon as she steps
upon her native soil. You know how she loves the boy, who is the living
image of the great man with whom she shared the highest joys of love.
When she learns that he, the son of Caesar, has given his young heart to
the cast-off wife of a street orator, a woman whose home attracted men as
ripe dates lure birds, it will be--I know--like rubbing salt into her
fresh wounds. Alas! and the one sorrow will not be all. Antony, her
husband, also found the way to Barine. He sought her more than once. You
cannot know it as I do; but Charmian will tell you how sensitive she has
become since the flower of her youthful charms--you don't perceive it--is
losing one leaf after another. Jealousy will torture her, and--I know her
well--perhaps no one will ever render the siren a greater service than I
did when I compelled her to leave the city."

The eyes of Archibius's clever niece had glittered with such hostile
feeling as she spoke that he thought with just anxiety of his dead
friend's daughter. What did not yet threaten Barine as serious danger
Iras had the power to transform into grave peril.

Dion had begged him to maintain strict secrecy; but even had he been
permitted to speak, he would not have done so now. From his knowledge of
Iras's character she might be expected, if she learned that some one had
come between her and the friend of her youth, to shrink from no means of
spoiling her game. He remembered the noble Macedonian maiden whom the
Queen had begun to favour, and who was hunted to death by Iras's hostile
intrigues. Few were more clever, and--if she once loved--more loyal and
devoted, more yielding, pliant, and in happy hours more bew