Cleopatra | Page 6

such plans. There is some secret object to be
gained here. That is why they have brought Philostratus. I wonder if the
conspiracy is connected in any way with Barine, whose husband--
unfortunately for her--he was before he cast her off."
"Cast her off!" exclaimed Gorgias wrathfully. "How that sounds! True,
he did it, but to persuade him the poor woman sacrificed half the
fortune her father had earned by his brush. You know as well as I that
life with that scoundrel would be unbearable."
"Very true," replied Dion quietly. "But as all Alexandria melted into
admiration after her singing of the 'yalemos' at the Adonis festival, she
no longer needed her contemptible consort."
"How can you take pleasure, whenever it is possible, in casting such
slurs upon a woman, whom but yesterday you called blameless,
charming, peerless?"

"That the light she sheds may not dazzle your eyes. I know how
sensitive they are."
"Then spare, instead of irritating them. Besides, your suggestion gives
food for thought Barine is the granddaughter of the man whose garden
they want, and the advocate would probably be glad to injure both. But
I'll spoil his game. It is my business to choose the site for the statues."
"Yours?" replied Dion. "Unless some on who is more powerful opposes
you. I would try to win my uncle, but there are others superior to him.
The Queen has gone, it is true; but Iras, whose commands do not die
away in empty air, told me this morning that she had her own ideas
about the errection of the statue."
"Then you bring Philostratus here!" cried the architect.
"I?" asked the other in amazement.
"Ay, you," asserted Gorgias. "Did not you say that Iras, with whom you
played when a boy is now becoming troublesome by watching your
every step? And then--you visit Barine constantly and she so evidently
prefers you, that the fact might easily reach the ears of Iras."
"As Argus has a hundred, jealousy has a thousand eyes," interrupted
Dion, "yet I seek nothing from Barine, save two pleasant hours when
the day is drawing towards its close. No matter; Iras, I suppose, heard
that I was favoured by this much-admired woman. Iras herself has
some little regard for me, so she bought Philostratus. She is willing to
pay something for the sake of injuring the woman who stands between
us, or the old man who has the good or evil fortune of being her rival's
grandfather. No, no; that would be too base! And believe me, if Iras
desired to ruin Barine, she need not make so long a circuit. Besides, she
is not really a wicked woman. Or is she? All I know is that where any
advantage is to be gained for the Queen, she does not shrink even from
doubtful means, and also that the hours speed swiftly for any one in her
society. Yes, Iras, Iras--I like to utter the name. Yet I do not love her,
and she--loves only herself, and--a thing few can say--another still
more. What is the world, what am I to her, compared with the Queen,
the idol of her heart? Since Cleopatra's departure, Iras seems like the
forsaken Ariadne, or a young roe which has strayed from its mother.
But stop; she may have a hand in the game: the Queen trusted her as if
she were her sister, her daughter. No one knows what she and
Charmian are to her. They are called waiting-women, but are their

sovereign's dearest friends. When, on the departure of the fleet,
Cleopatra was compelled to leave Iras here--she was ill with a
fever--she gave her the charge of her children, even those whose beards
were beginning to grow, the 'King of kings' Caesarion, whose tutor
punishes him for every act of disobedience; and the unruly lad Antyllus,
who has forced his way the last few evenings into our friend's house."
"Antony, his own father, introduced him to her."
"Very true, and Antyllus took Caesarion there. This vexed Iras, like
everything which may disturb the Queen. Barine is troublesome on
account of Cleopatra, whom she wishes to spare every, annoyance, and
perhaps she dislikes her a little for my sake. Now she wants to inflict
on the old man, Barine's grandfather, whom she loves, some injury
which the spoiled, imprudent woman will scarcely accept quietly, and
which will rouse her to commit some folly that can be used against her.
Iras will hardly seek her life, but she may have in mind exile or
something of that kind. She knows people as well as I know her, my
neighbour and playmate, whom many a time I was obliged to lift down
from some tree into which the child had climbed as nimbly as a kitten."
"I myself