The new-born hope had transformed the despairing woman into a happy one, and Charmian perceived it with grateful joy, secretly wishing that Cleopatra had listened to her appeal.

While examining the hair-dyes used by the Queen she saw, lurking in the background of what was still unexplained, and therefore confused her mind, fresh and serious perils.  Barine, on the contrary, gazed across them to the anticipated meeting with her lover, and was full of the gayest expectation until the maid-servant’s return.

The work of disfigurement began without delay.  Anukis moved her lips as busily as her hands, and described in regular order all that had befallen her during the eventful day.

Barine listened with rising excitement, and her joy increased as she beheld the path which had been smoothed for her by the care and wisdom of her friends.  Charmian, on the contrary, became graver and more quiet the more distinctly she perceived the danger her favourite must encounter.  Yet she could not help admitting that it would be a sin against Barine’s safety, perhaps her very life, to withhold her from this well-considered plan of escape.

That it must be tried was certain; but as the moment which was to endanger the woman she loved drew nearer, and she could not help saying to herself that she was aiding an enterprise in opposition to the express command of the Queen and helping to execute a plan which threatened to rouse the indignation, perhaps the fury, of Cleopatra, a feeling of sorrow overpowered her.  She feared nothing for herself.  Not for a single instant did she think of the unpleasant consequences which Barine’s escape might draw upon her.  The burden on her soul was due only to the consciousness of having, for the first time, opposed the will of the sovereign, to fulfil whose desires and to promote whose aims had been the beloved duty of her life.  Doubtless the thought crossed her mind that, by aiding Barine’s escape, she was guarding Cleopatra from future repentance; probably she felt sure that it was her duty to help rescue this beautiful young life, whose bloom had been so cruelly assailed by tempest and hoar-frost, and which now had a prospect of the purest happiness; yet, though in itself commendable, the deed brought her into sharp conflict with the loftiest aims and aspirations of her life.  And how much nearer than the other was the woman—­she shrank from the word—­ whom she was about to betray, how much greater was Cleopatra’s claim to her love and gratitude!  Could she have any other emotion than thankfulness if the plan of escape succeeded?  Yet she was reluctant to perform the task of making Barine’s beautiful, symmetrical figure resemble the hunch-backed Nubian’s, or to dip her fingers into the pomade intended for Cleopatra; and it grieved her to mar the beauty of Barine’s luxuriant tresses by cutting off part of her thick fair braids.

True, these things could not be avoided, if the flight was to succeed, and the further Anukis advanced in her story, the fewer became her mistress’s objections to the plan.