lent them an unfamiliar aspect.

"When it was reported that the Romans were advancing from Gaza, both
girls were overpowered by passionate excitement. Arsinoe's glittered in
every glance; Cleopatra understood how to conceal hers, but her colour
often varied, and her face, which was not pink and white like her
sister's, but--how shall I express it?"

"I know what you mean," Barine interrupted. "When I saw her, nothing
seemed to me more charming than that pallid hue through which the crimson
of her cheeks shines like the flame through yonder alabaster lamp, the
tint of the peach through the down. I have seen it often in
convalescents. Aphrodite breathes this hue on the faces and figures of
her favourites only, as the god of time imparts the green tinge to the
bronze. Nothing is more beautiful than when such women blush."

"Your sight is keen," replied Archibius, smiling. "It seemed indeed as
if not Eos, but her faint reflection in the western horizon, was tinting
the sky, when joy or shame sent the colour to her cheeks, But when wrath
took possession of her--and ere the King's return this often happened--
she could look as if she were lifeless, like a marble statue, with lips
as colourless as those of a corpse.

"My father said that the blood of Physkon and other degenerate ancestors,
who had not learned to control their passions, was asserting itself in
her also. But I must continue my story, or the messenger will interrupt
me too soon.

"Gabinius was bringing back the King. But from the time of his approach
with the Roman army and the auxiliary troops of the Ethnarch of Judea,