meeting a form which was now distasteful to the Queen. She wished to
question, not to condemn.

At so happy an hour it was a necessity of her nature to be gracious.
Perhaps she had been unduly anxious concerning this singer. It even
seemed probable; for a man who loved her like Antony could scarcely yearn
for the favour of another woman. This view had been freshly confirmed by
a brief conversation with the chief Inspector of Sacrifices, an estimable
old man, who, after hearing how Antony had hurried in pursuit of her at
Actium, raised his eyes and hands as if transported with rapture,
exclaiming: "Unhappy Queen! Yet happiest of women! No one was ever so
ardently beloved; and when the tale is told of the noble Trojan who
endured such sore sufferings for a woman's sake, future generations will
laud the woman whose resistless spell constrained the greatest man of his
day, the hero of heroes, to cast aside victory, fame, and the hope of the
world's sovereignty, as mere worthless rubbish."

Posterity, whose verdict she dreaded--this wise old reader of the future
was right--must extol her as the most fervently beloved, the most
desirable of women.

And Mark Antony? Even had the magic power of Nektanebus's goblet forced
him to follow her and to leave the battle, there still remained his will,
a copy of which--received from Rome--Zeno, the Keeper of the Seal, had
showed to her at the close of the council. "Wherever he might die," so
ran the words, "he desired to be buried by the side of Cleopatra."
Octavianus had wrested it from the Vestal Virgins, to whose care it had
been entrusted, in order to fill the hearts of Roman citizens and matrons
with indignation against his foe. The plot had succeeded, but the
document had reminded Cleopatra that her heart had given this man the