“Does it not!” exclaimed Cornelia, drinking in the matchless spectacle.  “But you, kind sir, do you not run personal peril by putting into this haven for my sake?”

Demetrius laughed.

“It speaks ill for the law-abiding qualities of my countrymen, lady,” said he, “that I have nothing now to fear.  I have too many great friends both in the court and in the city to fear arrest or annoyance.  Here I may not stay long, for if it were to be noised in Rome that a pirate were harboured habitually at Alexandria, a demand for my arrest would come to the king quickly enough, and he must needs comply.  But for a few days, especially while all Rome is in chaos, I am safe; and, come what may, I would be first warned if any one intended to lay hands on me.”

Indeed, Demetrius’s boast as to his own importance in Alexandria was soon verified.  The customs officials were all obsequiousness when they went through the form of levying on the cargo of the ship.  The master of the port was soon in Demetrius’s own cabin over a crater of excellent wine, and no sooner had the vessels touched the quay than their crews were fraternizing with the hosts of stevedores and flower-girls who swarmed to meet the new arrivals.

* * * * *

A few days later Cornelia and Fabia found themselves received as members of the household of no less a person than Cleomenes, a distant kinsman of Demetrius and Agias, and himself one of the great merchant princes of the Egyptian capital.  The Roman ladies found a certain amount of shyness to overcome on their own part and on that of their hosts.  Cleomenes himself was a widower, and his ample house was presided over by two dark-skinned, dark-eyed daughters, Berenice and Monime—­girls who blended with the handsome Greek features of their father the soft, sensuous charm of his dead Egyptian wife.  Bashful indeed had been these maidens in contact with the strangers who came bearing with them the haughty pride of all-conquering Rome.  But after a day or two, when Cornelia had cast off the hauteur begotten of diffidence, and Fabia had opened the depths of her pure womanly character, the barriers were thrown down rapidly enough; and Cornelia and Fabia gained, not merely an access to a new world of life and ideas, but two friends that they could regard almost as sisters.

It was a new thing for these Roman ladies to meet a foreigner on terms approaching equality.  A non-Roman had been for them a servant, an intelligent underling, nothing more; even Agias and Demetrius they had regarded as friends, very close and agreeable, but whom it was a distinct condescension not to treat with ostentatious superiority.  But to sustain this feeling long with Berenice and Monime was impossible.  The young Egyptians were every whit as cultured, as intelligent, as themselves, every whit as accustomed to deference from others, and implicitly assumed the right to demand it.  The result was that Cornelia found herself thinking less and less about being a Roman, and more and more regarded her gracious hosts as persons in every way equal to herself.