But Iras had already laid it on the arm of one of the waiting maids, and Cleopatra now glanced around her, and with a youthful, elastic step approached the throne.

Once more the feeling of timidity which she had had in her girlhood overpowered Barine, but with it came the memory of the garden of Epicurus, and Archibius’s assurance that she, too, would have left the Queen with her heart overflowing with warm enthusiasm had not a disturbing influence interposed between them.

Yet, had this disturbing influence really existed?  No.  It was created solely by Cleopatra’s jealous imagination.  If she would only permit her to speak freely now, she should hear that Antony cared as little for her as she, Barine, for the boy Caesarion.  What prevented her from confessing that her heart was another’s?  Iras had no one to blame save herself if she spoke the truth pitilessly in her presence.

Cleopatra now turned to the “introducer,” waving her hand towards the throne and those who surrounded it.

Ay, she was indeed beautiful.  How bright and clear was the light of her large eyes, in spite of the harassing days through which she had passed and the present night of watching!

Cleopatra’s heart was still elated by the reception of her bold idea of escape, and she approached Barine with gentler feelings and intentions.  She had chosen a pleasanter room for the interview than the one Iras had selected.  She desired a special environment to suit each mood, and as soon as she saw the group of courtiers who surrounded the throne she ordered their dismissal.

The “introducer,” to carry out the usual ceremonial, had commanded their presence in the audience chamber, but their attendance had given the meeting a form which was now distasteful to the Queen.  She wished to question, not to condemn.

At so happy an hour it was a necessity of her nature to be gracious.  Perhaps she had been unduly anxious concerning this singer.  It even seemed probable; for a man who loved her like Antony could scarcely yearn for the favour of another woman.  This view had been freshly confirmed by a brief conversation with the chief Inspector of Sacrifices, an estimable old man, who, after hearing how Antony had hurried in pursuit of her at Actium, raised his eyes and hands as if transported with rapture, exclaiming:  “Unhappy Queen!  Yet happiest of women!  No one was ever so ardently beloved; and when the tale is told of the noble Trojan who endured such sore sufferings for a woman’s sake, future generations will laud the woman whose resistless spell constrained the greatest man of his day, the hero of heroes, to cast aside victory, fame, and the hope of the world’s sovereignty, as mere worthless rubbish.”

Posterity, whose verdict she dreaded—­this wise old reader of the future was right—­must extol her as the most fervently beloved, the most desirable of women.