“As Argus has a hundred, jealousy has a thousand eyes,” interrupted Dion, “yet I seek nothing from Barine, save two pleasant hours when the day is drawing towards its close.  No matter; Iras, I suppose, heard that I was favoured by this much-admired woman.  Iras herself has some little regard for me, so she bought Philostratus.  She is willing to pay something for the sake of injuring the woman who stands between us, or the old man who has the good or evil fortune of being her rival’s grandfather.  No, no; that would be too base!  And believe me, if Iras desired to ruin Barine, she need not make so long a circuit.  Besides, she is not really a wicked woman.  Or is she?  All I know is that where any advantage is to be gained for the Queen, she does not shrink even from doubtful means, and also that the hours speed swiftly for any one in her society.  Yes, Iras, Iras—­I like to utter the name.  Yet I do not love her, and she—­loves only herself, and—­a thing few can say—­another still more.  What is the world, what am I to her, compared with the Queen, the idol of her heart?  Since Cleopatra’s departure, Iras seems like the forsaken Ariadne, or a young roe which has strayed from its mother.  But stop; she may have a hand in the game:  the Queen trusted her as if she were her sister, her daughter.  No one knows what she and Charmian are to her.  They are called waiting-women, but are their sovereign’s dearest friends.  When, on the departure of the fleet, Cleopatra was compelled to leave Iras here—­she was ill with a fever—­she gave her the charge of her children, even those whose beards were beginning to grow, the ‘King of kings’ Caesarion, whose tutor punishes him for every act of disobedience; and the unruly lad Antyllus, who has forced his way the last few evenings into our friend’s house.”

“Antony, his own father, introduced him to her.”

“Very true, and Antyllus took Caesarion there.  This vexed Iras, like everything which may disturb the Queen.  Barine is troublesome on account of Cleopatra, whom she wishes to spare every, annoyance, and perhaps she dislikes her a little for my sake.  Now she wants to inflict on the old man, Barine’s grandfather, whom she loves, some injury which the spoiled, imprudent woman will scarcely accept quietly, and which will rouse her to commit some folly that can be used against her.  Iras will hardly seek her life, but she may have in mind exile or something of that kind.  She knows people as well as I know her, my neighbour and playmate, whom many a time I was obliged to lift down from some tree into which the child had climbed as nimbly as a kitten.”

“I myself suggested this conjecture, yet I cannot credit her with such unworthy intrigues,” cried Gorgias.