ny him to the war.

How she had enjoyed the peaceful days in her mother's house! How quickly
the bright cheerfulness which she had supposed lost had returned to her
soul!--and to-day Fate had blessed her with the greatest happiness life
had ever offered. True, she had had only a few brief hours in which to
enjoy it, for the attack of the unbridled boys and the wound inflicted
upon her lover had cast a heavy shadow on her bliss.

Her mother had again proved to be in the right when she so confidently
predicted a second misfortune which would follow the first only too
soon.

Barine had been torn at midnight from her peaceful home and her wounded
lover's bedside. This was done by the Queen's command, and, full of
angry excitement, she said to herself that the men were right who cursed
tyranny because it transformed free human beings into characterless
chattels.

There could be nothing good awaiting her; that was proved by the
messengers whom Cleopatra had sent to summon her at this unprecedented
hour. They were her worst enemies: Iras, who desired to wed her
lover--Dion had told her so after the assault--and Alexas, whose suit
she had rejected in a way which a man never forgives.

She had already learned Iras's feelings. The slender figure with the
narrow head, long, delicate nose, small chin, and pointed fingers,
seemed to her like a long, sharp thorn. This strange comparison had
entered her head as Iras stood rigidly erect, reading aloud in a shrill,
high voice the Queen's command. Everything about this hard, cold face
appeared as sharp as a sting, and ready to destroy her.

Her removal from her mother's house to the royal palace had been swift
and simple.

After the attack--of which she saw little, because, overpowered by fear
and horror, she closed her eyes--she had driven home with her lover,
where the leech had bandaged his injuries, and Berenike had quickly and
carefully transformed her own sleeping chamber into a sick-room.

Barine, after changing her dress, did not leave Dion's side. She
had attired herself carefully, for she knew his delight in outward
adornment. When she returned from her grandparents, before sunset, she
was alone with him, and he, kissing her arm, had murmured that wherever
the Greek tongue was spoken there was not one more beautiful. The gem
was worthy of its loveliness. So she had opened her baggage to take out
the circlet which Antony had given, and it again enclasped her arm when
s