s
if she were a goddess.

And now this fine gentleman had come to crush his fairest hopes. No word
of love had ever been exchanged between him and Barine, but how kindly
she had always looked at him, how willingly she had accepted trivial
services! Now she was lost. At first this had merely saddened him, but
after he had drunk the wine, and Antyllus, Antony's son, in the
presence of the revellers, over whom Caesarion presided as
"symposiarch"--[Director of a banquet.]--had accused Barine of capturing
hearts by magic spells, he had arrived at the conviction that he, too,
had been shamefully allured and betrayed.

He had served for a toy, he said to himself, unless she had really loved
him and merely preferred Dion on account of his wealth. In any case,
he felt justified in cherishing resentment against Barine, and with the
number of goblets which he drained his jealous rage increased.

When urged to join in the escapade which now burdened his conscience
he consented with a burning brain in order to punish her for the wrong
which, in his heated imagination, she had done him.

All this he withheld from the older men and merely briefly described
the splendid banquet which Caesarion, pallid and listless as ever, had
directed, and Antyllus especially had enlivened with the most reckless
mirth.

The "King of kings" and Antony's son had escaped from their tutors
on the pretext of a hunting excursion, and the chief huntsman had not
grudged them the pleasure--only they were obliged to promise him that
they would be ready to set out for the desert early the next morning.

When, after the banquet, the mixing-vessels were brought out and the
beakers were filled more rapidly, Antyllus whispered several times to
Caesarion and then turned the conversation upon Barine, the fairest
of the fair, destined by the immortals for the greatest and highest of
mankind. This was the "King of kings," Caesarion, and he also claimed
the favour of the gods for himself. But everybody knew that Aphrodite
deemed herself greater than the highest of kings, and therefore Barine
ventured to close her doors upon their august symposiarch in a manner
which could not fail to be unendurable, not only to him but to all the
youth of Alexandria. Whoever boasted of being one of the Ephebi might
well clench his fist with indignation, when he heard that the insolent
beauty kept young men at a distance because she considered only the
older ones worthy of her noti