Hypatia shook her head sadly.

'Ah, boys will be boys .... I plead guilty myself. Video meliora
proboque, deteriora sequor. You must not be hard on us ....
Whether we obey you or not in private life, we do in public; and if
we enthrone you queen of Alexandria, you must allow your courtiers
and bodyguards a few court licences. Now don't sigh or I shall be
inconsolable. At all events, your worst rival has betaken herself
to the wilderness, and gone to look for the city of the gods above
the cataracts.'

'Whom do you mean?' asked Hypatia, in a tone most unphilosophically
eager.

'Pelagia, of course. I met that prettiest and naughtiest of
humanities half-way between here and Thebes, transformed into a
perfect Andromache of chaste affection.'

'And to whom, pray?'

'To a certain Gothic giant. What men those barbarians do breed! I
was afraid of being crushed under the elephant's foot at every step
I took with him!'

'What!' asked Hypatia, 'did your excellency condescend to converse
with such savages?'

'To tell you the truth, he had some forty stout countrymen of his
with him, who might have been troublesome to a perplexed prefect;