at the table, pen in hand, sits
a man of middle age, pale, clean-shaven, with hair close-cropped. His
dress is not that of a soldier--it is the flowing, white robe of a
Roman Priest. Only one servant attends this man, a secretary, seated
near, who rises and explains that the present is acceptable and shall be
deposited on the floor.

The pale man at the table looks up, smiles a tired smile, and murmurs in
a perfunctory way his thanks.

Appolidorus having laid his burden on the floor, kneels to untie the
ropes.

The secretary explains that he need not trouble, pray bear thanks and
again thanks to his master--he need not tarry!

The dumb man on his knees neither hears nor heeds.

The rug is unrolled.

From out the roll a woman leaps lightly to her feet--a beautiful young
woman of twenty.

She stands there, poised, defiant, gazing at the pale-faced man seated
at the table.

He is not surprised--he never was. One might have supposed he received
all his visitors in this manner.

"Well?" he says in a quiet way, a half-smile parting his thin lips.

The woman's breast heaves with tumultuous emotion--just an instant. She
speaks, and there is no tremor in her tones. Her voice is low, smooth
and scarcely audible: "I am Cleopatra."

The man at the desk lays down his pen, leans back and gently nods his
head, as much as to say, indulgently, "Yes, my child, I hear--go on!"

"I am Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, and I would speak with thee alone."

She paused; then raising one jeweled arm motions to Appolidorus that he
shall withdraw. With a similar motion, the man at the desk signifies the
same to his astonished secretary.

* * * * *

Appolidorus went down the long hallway, down the stone steps and waited
at the outer gate amid the throng of soldiers. They questioned him,
gibed him, railed at him, but they got no word in reply.

He waited--he waited an hour, two--and then came a messenger with a note
written on a slip of parchment. The words ran thus: "Well-beloved
'Dorus: Veni, vidi, vici! Go fetch my maids, also all of our personal
belongings."

* * * * *

Standing alone by the slashed and stiffened corpse of Julius Caesar, Mark
Antony says:

"Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times."

Caesar had two qualities that mark the man of supreme power: he was
gentle and he was firm.

To be gentle, generous, lenient,