e verge of the abyss, perhaps you may be right. It seems
as if matters here were combining in a way which would be apt to rob the
story-teller of his listener's faith."

After Aisopion had gone, Gorgias returned to Dion's room and asked the
freedman to be ready with his boat at a place on the shore which he
carefully described.

The friends were again alone. Gorgias had his hands full of work, but
he could not help expressing his surprise at the calm bearing which
Dion maintained. "You behave as if you were going to an oyster supper
at Kanopus," he said, shaking his head as though perplexed by some
incomprehensible problem.

"What else would you have me do?" asked the Macedonian. "The vivid
imagination of you artists shows you the future according to your own
varying moods. If you hope, you transform a pleasant garden into the
Elysian fields; if you fear anything you behold in a burning roof the
conflagration of a world. We, from whose cradle the Muse was absent, who
use only sober reason to provide for the welfare of the household and
the state, as well as for our own, see facts as they are and treat them
like figures in a sum. I know that Barine is in danger. That might drive
me frantic; but beyond her I see Archibius and Charmian spreading their
protecting wings over her head; I perceive the fear of my faction,
including the museum, of the council of which I am a member, of my
clients and the conditions of the times, which precludes arousing
the wrath of the citizens. The product which results from the correct
addition of all these known quantities--"

"Will be correct," interrupted his friend, "so long as the most
incalculable of all factors, passion, does not blend with them--the
passion of a woman--and the Queen belongs to the sex which is certainly
more powerful in that domain."

"Granted! But as soon as Mark Antony returns it will be proved that her
jealousy was needless."

"We will hope so. It is only the misled, deceived, abused Cleopatra whom
I fear; for she herself is matchless in divine goodness. The charm by
which she ensnares hearts is indescribable, and the iron power of her
intellect! I tell you, Dion--"

"Friend, friend," was the laughing interruption. "How high your wishes
soar! For three years I have kept an account of the conflagrations in
your heart. I believe we had reached seventeen; but this last one is
equal to two."

"Folly!" cried Gorgias in an irritated tone: "May not a man admire