When they reached the next room he asked for a faithful account of Barine and the dangers threatening her.  After consulting her as if she were an equal, he held out his hand in farewell, saying:  “If it is possible to bring her to the Temple of Isis unseen, these clouds may scatter.  I shall be in the sanctuary of the goddess from the first hour after sunset.  I have some measurements to take there.  When you say you know that the immortals will have pity on the innocent woman whom they have led to the verge of the abyss, perhaps you may be right.  It seems as if matters here were combining in a way which would be apt to rob the story-teller of his listener’s faith.”

After Aisopion had gone, Gorgias returned to Dion’s room and asked the freedman to be ready with his boat at a place on the shore which he carefully described.

The friends were again alone.  Gorgias had his hands full of work, but he could not help expressing his surprise at the calm bearing which Dion maintained.  “You behave as if you were going to an oyster supper at Kanopus,” he said, shaking his head as though perplexed by some incomprehensible problem.

“What else would you have me do?” asked the Macedonian.  “The vivid imagination of you artists shows you the future according to your own varying moods.  If you hope, you transform a pleasant garden into the Elysian fields; if you fear anything you behold in a burning roof the conflagration of a world.  We, from whose cradle the Muse was absent, who use only sober reason to provide for the welfare of the household and the state, as well as for our own, see facts as they are and treat them like figures in a sum.  I know that Barine is in danger.  That might drive me frantic; but beyond her I see Archibius and Charmian spreading their protecting wings over her head; I perceive the fear of my faction, including the museum, of the council of which I am a member, of my clients and the conditions of the times, which precludes arousing the wrath of the citizens.  The product which results from the correct addition of all these known quantities—­”

“Will be correct,” interrupted his friend, “so long as the most incalculable of all factors, passion, does not blend with them—­the passion of a woman—­and the Queen belongs to the sex which is certainly more powerful in that domain.”

“Granted!  But as soon as Mark Antony returns it will be proved that her jealousy was needless.”

“We will hope so.  It is only the misled, deceived, abused Cleopatra whom I fear; for she herself is matchless in divine goodness.  The charm by which she ensnares hearts is indescribable, and the iron power of her intellect!  I tell you, Dion—­”

“Friend, friend,” was the laughing interruption.  “How high your wishes soar!  For three years I have kept an account of the conflagrations in your heart.  I believe we had reached seventeen; but this last one is equal to two.”

“Folly!” cried Gorgias in an irritated tone:  “May not a man admire what is magnificent, wonderful, unique?  She is all these things!  Just now—­how long ago is it?—­she appeared before me in a radiance of beauty—­”