Charmian now eagerly strove to show the Queen what had induced the Syrian to pursue Barine so vindictively.  It was evident—­and scarcely needed proof—­that Mark Antony’s whole acquaintanceship with the old scholar’s granddaughter had been far from leading to any tender relation.  But Cleopatra gave only partial attention.  The man whom she had loved with every pulsation of her heart already seemed to her only a dear memory.  She did not forget the happiness enjoyed with and through him, or the wrong she had done by the use of the magic goblet; yet with the wall on the Choma, which divided him from her and the rest of the world, and her command to have the mausoleum built, she imagined that the season of love was over.  Any new additions to this chapter of the life of her heart were but the close.  Even the jealousy which had clouded the happiness of her love like a fleeting, rapidly changing shadow, she believed she had now renounced forever.

While Charmian protested that no one save Dion had ever been heard with favour by Barine, and related many incidents of her former life, Cleopatra’s thoughts were with Antony.  Like the image of the beloved dead, the towering figure of the Roman hero rose before her mind, but she recalled him only as he was prior to the battle of Actium.  She desired and expected nothing more from the broken-spirited man, whose condition was perhaps her own fault.  But she had resolved to atone for her guilt, and would do so at the cost of throne and life.  This settled the account.  Whatever her remaining span of existence might add or subtract, was part of the bargain.

The entrance of Alexas interrupted her.  With fiery passion he expressed his regret that he had been defrauded by base intrigues of the right bestowed upon him to pass sentence upon a guilty woman.  This was the more difficult to bear because he was deprived of the possibility of providing for the pursuit of the fugitive.  Antony had honoured him with the commission to win Herod back to his cause.  He was to leave Alexandria that very night.  As nothing could be expected in this matter from the misanthropic Imperator, he hoped that the Queen would avenge such an offence to her dignity, and adopt severe measures towards the singer and her last lover, Dion, who with sacrilegious hands had wounded the son of Caesar.

But Cleopatra, with royal dignity, kept him within the limits of his position, commanded him not to mention the affair to her again, and then, with a sorrowful smile, wished him success with Herod, in whose return to the lost cause of Antony, however, much as she prized the skill of the mediator, she did not believe.

When he had retired, she exclaimed to Charmian:  “Was I blind?  This man is a traitor!  We shall discover it.  Wherever Dion has taken his young wife, let her be carefully concealed, not from me, but from this Syrian.  It is easier to defend one’s self against the lion than the scorpion.  You, my friend, will see that Archibius seeks me this very day.  I must talk with him, and—­you no longer have any thought of a parting?  Another will come soon enough, which will forever forbid these lips from kissing your dear face.”