“We?” replied Iras.  “Who was your companion?”

“Dion,” answered Archibius; but when he was about to describe the incidents of the preceding night, she interrupted him with the question whether Barine had consented to leave the city.  He assented with a curt “Yes,” but Iras assumed the manner of having expected nothing different, and requested him to continue his story.

Archibius now related everything which they had experienced, and their discovery in the pirate ship.  Dion was even now on the way to carry Antony’s order to his friend Gorgias.

“Any slave might have attended to that matter equally well,” Iras remarked in an irritated tone.  “I should think he would have more reason to expect trustworthy tidings here.  But that’s the way with men!”

Here she hesitated but, meeting an inquiring glance from her uncle, she went on eagerly; “Nothing, I believe, binds them more firmly to one another than mutual pleasure.  But that must now be over.  They will seek other amusements, whether with Heliodora or Thais I care not.  If the woman had only gone before!  When she caught young Caesarion—­”

“Stay, child,” her uncle interrupted reprovingly.  “I know how much she would rejoice if Antyllus had never brought the boy to her house.”

“Now—­because the poor deluded lad’s infatuation alarms her.”

“No, from his first visit.  Immature boys do not suit the distinguished men whom she receives.”

“If the door is always kept open, thieves will enter the house.”

“She received only old acquaintances, and the friends whom they presented.  Her house was closed to all others.  So there was no trouble with thieves.  But who in Alexandria could venture to refuse admittance to a son of the Queen?”

“There is a wide difference between quiet admittance and fanning a passion to madness.  Wherever a fire is burning, there has certainly been a spark to kindle it.  You men do not detect such women’s work.  A glance, a pressure of the hand, even the light touch of a garment, and the flame blazes, where such inflammable material lies ready.”

“We lament the violence of the conflagration.  You are not well disposed towards Barine.”

“I care no more for her than this couch here cares for the statue of Mercury in the street!” exclaimed Iras, with repellent arrogance.  “There could be no two things in the world more utterly alien than we.  Between the woman whose door stands open, and me, there is nothing in common save our sex.”

“And,” replied Archibius reprovingly, “many a beautiful gift which the gods bestowed upon her as well as upon you.  As for the open door, it was closed yesterday.  The thieves of whom you spoke spoiled her pleasure in granting hospitality.  Antyllus forced himself with noisy impetuosity into her house.  This made her dread still more unprecedented conduct in the future.  In a few hours she will be on the way to Irenia.  I am glad for Caesarion’s sake, and still more for his mother’s, whom we have wronged by forgetting so long for another.”