tupid.

POTHINUS (musingly). Truly, that is the great secret.

CLEOPATRA. Well, now tell me what you came to say?

POTHINUS (embarrassed). I! Nothing.

CLEOPATRA. Nothing!

POTHINUS. At least--to beg for my liberty: that is all.

CLEOPATRA. For that you would have knelt to Caesar. No, Pothinus: you
came with some plan that depended on Cleopatra being a little nursery
kitten. Now that Cleopatra is a Queen, the plan is upset.

POTHINUS (bowing his head submissively). It is so.

CLEOPATRA (exultant). Aha!

POTHINUS (raising his eyes keenly to hers). Is Cleopatra then indeed a
Queen, and no longer Caesar's prisoner and slave?

CLEOPATRA. Pothinus: we are all Caesar's slaves--all we in this land of
Egypt--whether we will or no. And she who is wise enough to know this
will reign when Caesar departs.

POTHINUS. You harp on Caesar's departure.

CLEOPATRA. What if I do?

POTHINUS. Does he not love you?

CLEOPATRA. Love me! Pothinus: Caesar loves no one. Who are those we
love? Only those whom we do not hate: all people are strangers and
enemies to us except those we love. But it is not so with Caesar. He has
no hatred in him: he makes friends with everyone as he does with dogs
and children. His kindness to me is a wonder: neither mother, father,
nor nurse have ever taken so much care for me, or thrown open their
thoughts to me so freely.

POTHINUS. Well: is not this love?

CLEOPATRA. What! When he will do as much for the first girl he meets on
his way back to Rome? Ask his slave, Britannus: he has been just as good
to him. Nay, ask his very horse! His kindness is not for anything in ME:
it is in his own nature.

POTHINUS. But how can you be sure that he does not love you as men love
women?

CLEOPATRA. Because I cannot make him jealous. I have tried.

POTHINUS. Hm! Perhaps I should have asked, then, do you love him?

CLEOPATRA. Can one love a god? Besides, I love another Roman: one whom
I saw long before Caesar--no god, but a man--one who can love and
hate--one whom I can hurt and who would hurt me.

POTHINUS. Does Caesar know this?

CLEOPATRA. Yes

POTHINUS. And he is not angry.

CLEOPATRA. He promises to send him to Egypt to please me!

POTHINUS. I do not understand this man?

CLEOPATRA (with superb contempt). YOU understand Caesar! How could you?
(Proudly) I do--by instinct.

POTHINUS (deferentially, after a moment's thought). Your Majesty caused
me to be admitted to-day. What message has the