my friend--"

"And I am yours!"

"You have often proved the reverse, and now again with lies
and cheating--"

"You seem," interrupted Euergetes, "to have learned from your
unphilosophical favorite to express your indignation with extraordinary
frankness; to-day however I am, as I have said, as gentle as a kitten--"

"Euergetes and gentleness!" cried Cleopatra with a forced laugh. "No,
you only step softly like a cat when she is watching a bird, and your
gentleness covers some ruthless scheme, which we shall find out soon
enough to our cost. You have been talking with Eulaeus to-day; Eulaeus,
who fears and hates Publius, and it seems to me that you have hatched
some conspiracy against him; but if you dare to cast a single stone in
his path, to touch a single hair of his head, I will show you that even a
weak woman can be terrible. Nemesis and the Erinnyes from Alecto to
Megaera, the most terrible of all the gods, are women!"

Cleopatra had hissed rather than spoken these words, with her teeth set
with rage, and had raised her small fist to threaten her brother; but
Euergetes preserved a perfect composure till she had ceased speaking.
Then he took a step closer to her, crossed his arms over his breast, and
asked her in the deepest bass of his fine deep voice:

"Are you idiotically in love with this Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica,
or do you purpose to make use of him and his kith and kin in Rome against
me?"