wandered in disguise with Antony through the city streets and visited
some scene of merrymaking, while the men gazed admiringly at me, and we
heard voices behind us murmur, 'A handsome couple!' I returned home
full of joy and pride. But there was something greater still for the
woman to learn, when the heart in the breast of the Queen forgot throne
and sceptre and, in the hours consecrated to Eros, tasted joys known to
womanhood alone. How can you men, who only command and desire,
understand the happiness of sacrifice? I am a woman; my birth does not
exalt me above any feeling of my sex; and what I now ask is not as Queen
but as woman."

"If that is the case," Alexas answered with his hand upon his heart, "you
impose silence upon me; for were I to confess to the woman Cleopatra what
agitates my soul, I should be guilty of a double crime--I would violate a
promise and betray the friend who confided his noble wife to my
protection."

"Now the darkness is becoming too dense for me," replied Cleopatra,
raising her head with repellent pride. "Or, if I choose to raise the
veil, I must point out to you the barriers--

"Which surround the Queen," replied the Syrian with an obsequious bow.
"There you behold the fact. It is an impossibility to separate the woman
from the princess. So far as I am concerned, I do not wish to anger the
former against the presumptuous adorer, and I desire to yield to the
latter the obedience which is her due. Therefore I entreat you to
forget the armlet and its many painful associations, and pass to the
consideration of other matters. Perhaps the fair Barine will voluntarily
confess everything, and even add how she managed to ensnare the amiable
son of the greatest of men, and the most admirable of mothers, the young