"Do you know its real history?" asked Cleopatra, clasping her fingers
more closely around the pencil in her hand.

"If I did," replied Alexas, smiling significantly, "the receiver of
stolen goods should not betray the thief."

"Not even if the person who has been robbed--the Queen--commands you to
give up the dishonestly acquired possession?"

"Unfortunately, even then I should be forced to withhold obedience; for
consider, my royal mistress, there are but two great luminaries around
which my dark life revolves. Shall I betray the moon, when I am sure of
gaining nothing thereby save to dim the warm light of the sun?"

"That means that your revelations would wound me, the sun?"

"Unless your lofty soul is too great to be reached by shadows which
surround less noble women with an atmosphere of indescribable torture."

"Do you intend to render your words more attractive by the veil with
which you shroud them? It is transparent, and dims the vision very
little. My soul, you think, should be free from jealousy and the other
weaknesses of my sex. There you are mistaken. I am a woman, and wish to
remain one. As Terence's Chremes says he is a human being, and nothing
human is unknown to him, I do not hesitate to confess all feminine
frailties. Anubis told me of a queen in ancient times who would not
permit the inscriptions to record 'she,' but 'he came,' or 'he, the
ruler, conquered.' Fool! Whatever concerns me, my womanhood is not less
lofty than the crown. I was a woman ere I became Queen. The people
prostrate themselves before my empty litters; but when, in my youth, I