The spell of woman’s charms was also a gift of the goddess.  It would suffice to render Antony’s heart soft and yielding as the fire melted the gold.  Perhaps the Imperator had forfeited, with the Queen’s respect, her love—­the most priceless of blessings.  He, Anubis, would regard this as a great boon of the Deity; “for,” he concluded, “Mark Antony is the cliff which will shatter every effort to secure to my royal mistress undiminished the heritage which has come to her and her children from their ancestors, and preserve the independence and prosperity of this beloved land.  This cup was a costly treasure.  The throne and prosperity of Egypt are worthy of greater sacrifices.  But I know that there is none harder for a woman to make than her love.”

The meaning of the old man’s words Cleopatra learned the following morning, when she granted the first interview to Timagenes, Octavianus’s envoy.

The keen-witted, brilliant man, who had been one of her best teachers and with whom, when a pupil, she had had many an argument, was kindly received, and fulfilled his commission with consummate skill.

The Queen listened attentively to his representations, showed him that her own intellect had not lost in flexibility, though it had gained power; and when she dismissed him, with rich gifts and gracious words, she knew that she could preserve the independence of her beloved native land and retain the throne for herself and her children if she would surrender Antony to the conqueror or to him, as “the person acting,” or—­these were Timagenes’s own words—­“remove him forever from the play whose end she had the power to render either brilliant or fateful.”

When she was again alone her heart throbbed so passionately and her soul was in such a tumult of agitation that she felt unable to attend the appointed meeting of the Council of the crown.  She deferred the session until the following day, and resolved to go out upon the sea, to endeavour to regain her composure.

Antony had refused to see her.  This wounded her.  The thought of the goblet and its evil influences had by no means passed from her memory with the destruction of the vessel caused by one of those outbursts of passion to which, in these days of disaster, she yielded more frequently than usual.  On the contrary, she felt the necessity of being alone, to collect her thoughts and strive to dispel the clouds from her troubled soul.

The beaker had been one of the treasures of Isis, and the memory of it recalled hours during which, in former days, she had often found composure in the temple of the goddess.  She wished to seek the sanctuary unnoticed and, accompanied only by Iras and the chief Introducer, went, closely veiled, to the neighbouring temple at the Corner of the Muses.

But she failed to find the object of her pilgrimage.  The throng which filled it to pray and offer sacrifices, and the fear of being recognized, destroyed her calmness.