who knows if you might not have been his friend instead of the immortal
Aspasia. This Memphis is certainly not the right place for you; for a
few months in the year you ought to come to Alexandria, which has now
risen to be superior to Athens."

"I do not know you to-day!" exclaimed Cleopatra, gazing at her brother
in astonishment. "I have never heard you speak so kindly and brotherly
since the death of my mother. You must have some great request to make
of us."

"You see how thankless a thing it is for me to let my heart speak for
once, like other people. I am like the boy in the fable when the wolf
came! I have so often behaved in an unbrotherly fashion that when I show
the aspect of a brother you think I have put on a mask. If I had had
anything special to ask of you I should have waited till to-morrow, for
in this part of the country even a blind beggar does not like to refuse
his lame comrade anything on his birthday."

"If only we knew what you wish for! Philometor and I would do it more
than gladly, although you always want something monstrous. Our
performance to-morrow will--at any rate--but--Zoe, pray be good enough
to retire with the maids; I have a few words to say to my brother alone."

As soon as the queen's ladies had withdrawn, she went on:

"It is a real grief to use, but the best part of the festival in honor of
your birthday will not be particularly successful, for the priests of
Serapis spitefully refuse us the Hebe about whom Lysias has made us so
curious. Asclepiodorus, it would seem, keeps her in concealment, and
carries his audacity so far as to tell us that someone has carried her