All the emotions which had darkened and embittered her soul were soothed.  She hastened towards her friend’s sister, as a frightened child seeks its mother, and Charmian perceived what was stirring in her heart.

It would not do, under existing circumstances, to kiss her in the palace, but she drew Leonax’s daughter towards her to show Iras that she was ready to extend a protecting hand over the persecuted woman.  But Barine gazed at her with pleading glances, beseeching aid, whispering amid her tears:  “Help me, Charmian.  She has tortured, insulted, humiliated me with looks and words—­so cruelly, so spitefully!  Help me; I can bear no more.”

Charmian shook her kind head and urged her in a whisper to calm herself.  She had robbed Iras of her lover; she should remember that.  Cost what it might, she must not shed another tear.  The Queen was gracious.  She, Charmian, would aid her.  Everything would depend on showing herself to Cleopatra as she was, not as slander represented her.  She must answer her as she would Archibius or herself.

The kindly woman, as she spoke, stroked her brow and eyes with maternal tenderness, and Barine felt as if goodness itself had quelled the tempest in her soul.  She gazed around her as though roused from a troubled dream, and now for the first time perceived the richly adorned room in which she stood, the admiring glances of the boys in the Macedonian corps of pages, and the bright fire blazing cheerily on the hearth.  The howling of the storm increased the pleasant sense of being under a firm roof, and Iras, who had whispered to the “introducer” at the door, no longer seemed like a sharp thorn or a spiteful demon, but a woman by no means destitute of charm, who repulsed her, but on whom she had inflicted the keenest pang a woman’s heart can suffer.  Then she again thought of her wounded lover at home, and remembered that, whatever might happen, his heart did not belong to Iras, but to her alone.  Lastly, she recalled Archibius’s description of Cleopatra’s childhood, and this remembrance was followed by the conviction that the omnipotent sovereign would be neither cruel nor unjust, and that it would depend upon herself to win her favour.  Charmian, too, was the Queen’s confidante; and if the manner of Iras and Alexas had alarmed her, Charmian’s might well inspire confidence.

All these thoughts darted through her brain with the speed of lightning.  Only a brief time for consideration remained; for, even as she bowed her head on the bosom of her friend, the “introducer” entered the room, crying, “Her illustrious Majesty will expect those whom she summoned in a few minutes!”

Soon after a chamberlain appeared, waving a fan of ostrich feathers and, preceded by the court official, they passed through several brilliantly lighted, richly furnished rooms.

Barine again breathed freely and moved with head erect; and when the wide, lofty folding doors of ebony, against whose deep black surface the inlaid figures of Tritons, mermaids, shells, fish, and sea monsters were sharply relieved, she beheld a glittering, magnificent scene, for the hall which Cleopatra had chosen for her reception was completely covered with various marine forms, from the shells to coral and starfish.