e to the music of flutes. The Queen in the gauzy dress of Venus
reclined under a canopy, fanned by cupids. Her maids were dressed like
the Graces, and fragrance of burning incense diffused the shores.

The whole city went down the river to meet this most gorgeous pageant,
and Antony the proud was left at the tribunal alone.

On her arrival Cleopatra sent official word of her presence. Antony sent
back word that she should come to him.

She responded that if he wished to see her he should call and pay his
respects.

He went down to the riverside and was astonished at the dazzling,
twinkling lights and all the magnificence that his eyes beheld. Very
soon he was convinced that in elegance and magnificence he could not
cope with this Egyptian queen.

The personal beauty of Cleopatra was not great. Many of her maids
outshone her. Her power lay in her wit and wondrous mind. She adapted
herself to conditions; and on every theme and topic that the
conversation might take, she was at home.

Her voice was marvelously musical, and was so modulated that it seemed
like an instrument of many strings. She spoke all languages, and
therefore had no use for interpreters.

When she met Antony she quickly took the measure of the man. She fell at
once into his coarse soldier ways, and answered him jest for jest.

Antony was at first astonished, then subdued, next entranced--a woman
who could be the comrade of a man she had never seen before! She had the
intellect of a man and all the luscious weaknesses of a woman.

Cleopatra had come hating this man Antony, and to her surprise she found
him endurable--and more. Besides that, she had cause to be grateful to
him--he had destroyed those conspirators who had killed her Caesar--her
King of Kings.

She ordered her retinue to make ready to return. The prows were turned
toward Alexandria; and aboard the galley of the Queen, beneath the
silken canopy, at the feet of Cleopatra, reclined the great Mark
Antony.

* * * * *

The subject is set forth in Byron's masterly phrase, "Man's love is of
man's life a thing apart; 'tis woman's whole existence." Still, I
suppose it will not be disputed that much depends upon the man and--the
woman.

In this instance we have a strong, wilful, ambitious and masculine man.
Up to the time he met Cleopatra, love was of his life apart; after this,
it was his whole existence. When they first met there at Cilicia, Antony
was