wished the garden to remain
unchanged, she desired to see the colonnade and the remainder of the work
constructed of costly materials and in beautiful forms. When she bade him
farewell, Gorgias kissed her robe with ardent enthusiasm.

What a woman! True, she had not even raised her veil, and was attired in
plain dark clothing, but every gesture revealed the most perfect grace.

The arm and hand with which she pointed now here, now there, again seemed
to him fairly instinct with life; and he, who deemed perfection of form
of so much value, found it difficult to avert his eyes from her
marvellous symmetry. And her whole figure! What lines, what genuine
aristocratic elegance, and warm, throbbing life!

That morning when Helena, now an inmate of his own home, greeted him, he
had essayed to compare her, mentally, with Cleopatra, but speedily
desisted. The man to whom Hebe proffers nectar does not ask for even the
best wine of Byblus. A feeling of grateful, cheerful satisfaction,
difficult to describe, stole over him when the reserved, quiet Helena
addressed him so warmly and cordially; but the image of Cleopatra
constantly thrust itself between them, and it was difficult for him to
understand himself. He had loved many women in succession, and now his
heart throbbed for two at once, and the Queen was the brighter of the two
stars whose light entranced him. Therefore his honest soul would have
considered it a crime to woo Helena now.

Cleopatra knew what an ardent admirer she had won in the able architect,
and the knowledge pleased her. She had used no goblet to gain him.
Doubtless he would begin to build the mausoleum the next morning. The
vault must have space for several coffins. Antony had more than once
expressed the desire to be buried beside her, wherever he might die, and
this had occurred ere she possessed the beaker. She must in any case
grant him the same favour, no matter in what place or by whose hand he
met death, and the bedimmed light of his existence was but too evidently
nearing extinction. If she spared him, Octavianus would strike him from
the ranks of the living, and she----Again she was overpowered by the
terrible, feverish restlessness which had induced her to command the
destruction of the goblet, and had brought her to the temple. She could
not return in this mood to meet her councillors, receive visitors, greet
her children. This was the birthday of the twins; Charmian had reminded
her of it and u