Her smiling face clouded as she asked the question.  The vision of the lost battle again rose before her mind.  Her own power was lost, forfeited, and with it the independence of the native land which she loved.  Rome was already stretching out her hand to add it to the others as a new province.  But this should not be!  Her twin children yonder, sleeping beneath crowns, must wear them!  And the boy slumbering on the pillows?  How many kingdoms Antony had bestowed!  What remained for her to give?

Again she bent to the child.  A beautiful dream must have hovered over him, for he was smiling in his sleep.  A flood of maternal love welled up in her agitated heart, and, as she saw the companions of her childhood also gazing tenderly at the little steeper, she remembered the days of her own youth, and the quiet happiness which she had enjoyed in her garden of Epicurus.

Power and splendour had begun for her beyond its confines, but the greater the heights of worldly grandeur she attained, the more distant, the more irrecoverable became the consciousness of the happiness which she had once gratefully enjoyed, and for which she had never ceased to long.  And as she now gazed once more at the peaceful, smiling face, whence all pain and anxiety seemed worlds away, and all the love which her heart contained appeared to be pouring towards him, the question arose in her mind whether this boy, for whom she possessed no crown, might not be the only happy mortal of them all-happy in the sense of the master.  Deeply moved by this thought, she turned to Archibius and Charmian, exclaiming in a subdued tone, in order not to rouse the sleeper:  “Whatever destiny may await us, I commend this child to your special love and care.  If Fate denies him the lustre of the crown and the elation of power, teach him to enjoy that other happiness, which—­how long ago it is!—­your father unfolded to his mother.”

Archibius kissed her robe, and Charmian her hands; but Cleopatra, drawing a long breath, said:  “The mother has already taken too much time from the Queen.  I have ordered the news of my arrival to be kept from Caesarion.  This was well.  The most important matters will be settled before our meeting.  Everything relating to me and to the state must be decided within an hour.  But, first, I am something more than mother and Queen.  The woman also asserts her claim.  I will find time for you, my friend, to-morrow!-To my chamber first, Charmian.  But you need rest still more than I. Go with your brother.  Send Iras to me.  She will be glad to use her skilful fingers again in her mistress’s service.”

CHAPTER XI.

The Queen had left her bath.  Iras had arranged the still abundant waves of her hair, now dark-brown in hue, and robed her magnificently to receive the dignitaries whom, spite of the late hour of the night, she expected.