It was like silk, she often said, and she was right.  I know this, for when at the festival of Isis, Cleopatra, holding the sistrum, followed the image of the goddess, she was obliged to wear it unconfined.  On her return home she often shook her head merrily, and her hair fell about her like a cataract, veiling her face and figure.  Then, as now, she was not above middle height, but her form possessed the most exquisite symmetry, only it was still more delicate and pliant.

“She had understood how to win all hearts.  Yet, though she seemed to esteem our father higher, trust me more fully, look up to Anubis with greater reverence, and prefer to argue with the keen-witted Timagenes, she still appeared to hold all who surrounded her in equal favour, while Arsinoe left me in the lurch if Straton were present, and whenever the handsome Melnodor, one of my father’s pupils, came to us, she fairly devoured him with her glowing eyes.

“As soon as it was rumoured that the Romans were bringing the King back, Queen Berenike came to us to take the young girls to the city.  When Cleopatra entreated her to leave her in our parents’ care and not interrupt her studies, a scornful smile flitted over Berenike’s face, and turning to her husband Archelaus, she said scornfully, ’I think books will prove to be the smallest danger.’

“Pothinus, the guardian of the two princesses’ brothers, had formerly permitted them at times to visit their sisters.  Now they were no longer allowed to leave Lochias, but neither Cleopatra nor Arsinoe made many inquiries about them.  The little boys always retreated from their caresses, and the Egyptian locks on their temples, which marked the age of childhood, and the Egyptian garments which Pothinus made them wear, lent them an unfamiliar aspect.

“When it was reported that the Romans were advancing from Gaza, both girls were overpowered by passionate excitement.  Arsinoe’s glittered in every glance; Cleopatra understood how to conceal hers, but her colour often varied, and her face, which was not pink and white like her sister’s, but—­how shall I express it?”

“I know what you mean,” Barine interrupted.  “When I saw her, nothing seemed to me more charming than that pallid hue through which the crimson of her cheeks shines like the flame through yonder alabaster lamp, the tint of the peach through the down.  I have seen it often in convalescents.  Aphrodite breathes this hue on the faces and figures of her favourites only, as the god of time imparts the green tinge to the bronze.  Nothing is more beautiful than when such women blush.”

“Your sight is keen,” replied Archibius, smiling.  “It seemed indeed as if not Eos, but her faint reflection in the western horizon, was tinting the sky, when joy or shame sent the colour to her cheeks, But when wrath took possession of her—­and ere the King’s return this often happened—­she could look as if she were lifeless, like a marble statue, with lips as colourless as those of a corpse.