and most unamiable and ill-tempered
tyrant of the universe with the Absolute of Aristotle!" cried Euergetes;
"he stigmatises most of what you and I and all rational Greeks require
for the enjoyment of life as sin--sin upon sin. And yet if my easily
persuadable brother governed at Alexandria, I believe the shrewd
priests might succeed in stamping him as a worshipper of that magnified
schoolmaster, who punishes his untutored brood with fire and torment."

"I cannot deny," replied Cleopatra, "that even to me the doctrine of the
Jews has something very fearful in it, and that to adopt it seems to
me tantamount to confiscating all the pleasures of life.--But enough of
such things, which I should no more relish as a daily food than you
do. Let us rejoice in that we are Hellenes, and let us now go to the
banquet. I fear you have found a very unsatisfactory substitute for what
you sought in coming up here."

"No--no. I feel strangely excited to-day, and my work with Aristarchus
would have led to no issue. It is a pity that we should have begun to
talk of that barbarian rubbish; there are so many other subjects more
pleasing and more cheering to the mind. Do you remember how we used to
read the great tragedians and Plato together?"

"And how you would often interrupt our tutor Agatharchides in his
lectures on geography, to point out some mistake! Did you prosecute
those studies in Cyrene?"

"Of course. It really is a pity, Cleopatra, that we should no longer
live together as we did formerly. There is no one, not even Aristarchus,
with whom I find it more pleasant and profitable to converse and discuss
than with you. If only you had lived at Athens in the time of Pericles,
who knows if you might not have been his friend instead of the immortal
Aspasia. This Memphis is certainly not the right place for you; for a
few months in the year you ought to come to Alexandria, which has now
risen to be superior to Athens."

"I do not know you to-day!" exclaimed Cleopatra, gazing at her brother
in astonishment. "I have never heard you speak so kindly and brotherly
since the death of my mother. You must have some great request to make
of us."

"You see how thankless a thing it is for me to let my heart speak for
once, like other people. I am like the boy in the fable when the wolf
came! I have so often behaved in an unbrotherly fashion that when I show
the aspect of a brother you think I have put on a mask. If I had had
anything speci