is could easily be arranged, she gazed
thoughtfully at the ground for a time, and then gave orders that the
work should be commenced at once, and requested him to spare neither
means nor men.

Gorgias foresaw a period of feverish toil, but it did not daunt him.
With such a master builder he was ready to roof the whole city. Besides,
the commission delighted him because it proved that the woman whose
mausoleum was to rise from the earth so swiftly still thought of
enhancing the pleasures of existence; for, though she wished the garden
to remain unchanged, she desired to see the colonnade and the remainder
of the work constructed of costly materials and in beautiful forms. When
she bade him farewell, Gorgias kissed her robe with ardent enthusiasm.

What a woman! True, she had not even raised her veil, and was attired in
plain dark clothing, but every gesture revealed the most perfect grace.

The arm and hand with which she pointed now here, now there, again
seemed to him fairly instinct with life; and he, who deemed perfection
of form of so much value, found it difficult to avert his eyes from
her marvellous symmetry. And her whole figure! What lines, what genuine
aristocratic elegance, and warm, throbbing life!

That morning when Helena, now an inmate of his own home, greeted him,
he had essayed to compare her, mentally, with Cleopatra, but speedily
desisted. The man to whom Hebe proffers nectar does not ask for even
the best wine of Byblus. A feeling of grateful, cheerful satisfaction,
difficult to describe, stole over him when the reserved, quiet Helena
addressed him so warmly and cordially; but the image of Cleopatra
constantly thrust itself between them, and it was difficult for him to
understand himself. He had loved many women in succession, and now his
heart throbbed for two at once, and the Queen was the brighter of the
two stars whose light entranced him. Therefore his honest soul would
have considered it a crime to woo Helena now.

Cleopatra knew what an ardent admirer she had won in the able architect,
and the knowledge pleased her. She had used no goblet to gain him.
Doubtless he would begin to build the mausoleum the next morning. The
vault must have space for several coffins. Antony had more than once
expressed the desire to be buried beside her, wherever he might die,
and this had occurred ere she possessed the beaker. She must in any case
grant him the same favour, no matter in what place or by whose