. The King Caesarion, with Antyllus and several companions,
attacked a woman. Blackened faces. A fight. Caesarion and the woman's
companion--an aristocrat, member of the Council--slightly wounded.
Lictors interfered just in time. The young gentlemen were arrested. At
first they refused to give their names--"

"Caesarion slightly, really only slightly wounded?" asked the eunuch
with eager haste.

"Really and positively. Olympus was summoned at once. A knock on
the head. The man who was attacked flung him on the pavement in the
struggle."

"Dion, the son of Eumenes, is the man," interrupted Iras, whose quick
ear had caught the officer's report. "The woman is Barine, the daughter
of the artist Leonax."

"Then you know already?" asked the Macedonian in surprise.

"So it seems," answered Mardion, gazing into the girl's face with a
significant glance. Then, turning to her rather than to the Macedonian,
he added, "I think we will have the young rascals set free and brought
to Lochias with as little publicity as possible."

"To the palace?" asked the Macedonian.

"Of course," replied Iras firmly. "Each to his own apartments, where
they must remain until further orders."

"Everything else must be deferred until after the reception," added the
eunuch, and the Macedonian, with a slight, haughty nod, drew back.

"Another misfortune," sighed the eunuch.

"A boyish prank," Iras answered quickly, "but even a still greater
misfortune is less than nothing so long as we are not conscious of it.
This unpleasant occurrence must be concealed for the present from the
Queen. Up to this time it is a vexation, nothing more--and it can and
must remain so; for we have it in our power to uproot the poisonous tree
whence it emanates."

"You look as if no one could better perform the task," the Regent
interrupted, with a side glance at the galley, "so you shall have the
commission. It is the last one I shall give, during the Queen's absence,
in her name."

"I shall not fail," she answered firmly.

When Iras again looked towards the landing-place she saw Archibius
standing alone, with his eyes fixed upon the ground. Impulse prompted
her to tell her uncle what had happened; but at the first step she
paused, and her thin lips uttered a firm "No."

Her friend had become a stone in her path. If necessary, she would find
means to thrust him also aside, spite of his sister Charmian and the
old tie which united him to Cleopatra. He had gro