He shall be crowned _King of Love_, whether he will it or
not."

Charmion lifted the chaplet from Cleopatra's brows and, bearing it to
where I was, with a smile set it upon my head yet warm and fragrant from
the Queen's hair, but so roughly that she pained me somewhat. She
did this because she was wroth, although she smiled with her lips and
whispered, "An omen, royal Harmachis." For though she was so very much
a woman, yet, when she was angered or suffered jealousy, Charmion had a
childish way.

Having thus fixed the chaplet, she curtsied low before me, and with the
softest tone of mockery named me, in the Greek tongue, "Harmachis, King
of Love." Then Cleopatra laughed and pledged me as "King of Love," and
so did all the company, finding the jest a merry one. For in Alexandria
they love not those who live straitly and turn aside from women.

But I sat there, a smile upon my lips, and black wrath in my heart. For,
knowing who and what I was, it irked me to think myself a jest for the
frivolous nobles and light beauties of Cleopatra's Court. But I was
chiefly angered against Charmion, because she laughed the loudest, and I
did not then know that laughter and bitterness are often the veils with
which a sore heart wraps its weakness from the world. "An omen" she said
it was--that crown of flowers--and so it proved indeed. For I was fated
to barter the Double Diadem of the Upper and the Lower Land for a wreath
of passion's roses that fade before they fully bloom, and Pharaoh's
ivory bed of state for the pillow of a faithless woman's breast.

"_King of Love!_" they crowned me in their mockery; ay, and King of
Shame! And I, with the perfumed roses on my brow--I, by descent and
ordination the Pharaoh of Egypt--thought of the imperishable halls
of Abouthis and of that other crowning which on the morrow should be
consummate.

But still smiling, I pledged them back, and answered with a jest. For
rising, I bowed before Cleopatra and craved leave to go. "Venus," I
said, speaking of the planet that we know as Donaou in the morning and
Bonou in the evening, "was in the ascendant. Therefore, as new-crowned
King of Love, I must now pass to do my homage to its Queen." For these
barbarians name Venus Queen of Love.

And so amidst their laughter I withdraw to my watch-tower, and, dashing
that shameful chaplet down amidst the instruments of my craft, made
pretence to note the rolling of the stars. There I waited, thinking on
many t