The queen stepped out of her tent, accompanied by a young Greek girl—­the fair Zoe, daughter of her master of the hunt Zenodotus, and Cleopatra’s favorite lady-in-waiting—­but though she looked towards the west, she stood unmoved by the magic of the glorious scene before her; she screened her eyes with her hand to shade them from the blinding rays, and said: 

“Where can Cornelius be staying!  When we mounted our chariots before the temple he had vanished, and as far as I can see the road in the quarters of Sokari and Serapis I cannot discover his vehicle, nor that of Eulaeus who was to accompany him.  It is not very polite of him to go off in this way without taking leave; nay, I could call it ungrateful, since I had proposed to tell him on our way home all about my brother Euergetes, who has arrived to-day with his friends.  They are not yet acquainted, for Euergetes was living in Cyrene when Publius Cornelius Scipio landed in Alexandria.  Stay! do you see a black shadow out there by the vineyard at Kakem; That is very likely he; but no—­you are right, it is only some birds, flying in a close mass above the road.  Can you see nothing more?  No!—­and yet we both have sharp young eyes.  I am very curious to know whether Publius Scipio will like Euergetes.  There can hardly be two beings more unlike, and yet they have some very essential points in common.”

“They are both men,” interrupted Zoe, looking at the queen as if she expected cordial assent to this proposition.

“So they are,” said Cleopatra proudly.  “My brother is still so young that, if he were not a king’s son, he would hardly have outgrown the stage of boyhood, and would be a lad among other Epheboi,—­[Youths above 18 were so called]—­and yet among the oldest there is hardly a man who is his superior in strength of will and determined energy.  Already, before I married Philometor, he had clutched Alexandria and Cyrene, which by right should belong to my husband, who is the eldest of us three, and that was not very brotherly conduct—­and indeed we had other grounds for being angry with him; but when I saw him again for the first time after nine months of separation I was obliged to forget them all, and welcome him as though he had done nothing but good to me and his brother—­who is my husband, as is the custom of the families of Pharaohs and the usage of our race.  He is a young Titan, and no one would be astonished if he one day succeeded in piling Pelion upon Ossa.  I know well enough how wild he can often be, how unbridled and recalcitrant beyond all bounds; but I can easily pardon him, for the same bold blood flows in my own veins, and at the root of all his excesses lies power, genuine and vigorous power.  And this innate pith and power are just the very thing we most admire in men, for it is the one gift which the gods have dealt out to us with a less liberal hand than to men.  Life indeed generally dams its overflowing current, but I doubt whether this will be the case with the stormy