Ancient Manners; Also Known As Aphrodite Part 29

The la.s.s drew herself up to her full height, knitted her brows violently, and dealt a dull blow on the soldier's forehead with her clenched fist.

"As for thee," she said in smothered accents, but with ferocious meaning, "I'll raise a cry of rape, and have thee quartered!"

Then, in silence, she entered the Queens chamber.

Berenice was asleep, her head pillowed on her arm, her hand hanging down.

Over the great crimson couch, a hanging lamp mingled its feeble glare with that of the moon, reflected by the whiteness of the walls. The vague, luminous outlines of the slumbering woman's supple nudity were thus enwrapped in misty shadow, between these two contrasting lights.

Slender Cleopatra sat straight up on the edge of the bed. She took her sister's face in her two little hands, waking Berenice up by touch and speech.

"Why is your lover not with you?" asked Cleopatra.

Berenice, startled, opened her lovely eyes.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Cleopatra! What are you doing here? What do you want of me?"

"Why is your lover not with you?" repeated the girl, insisting.

"Is he not with me?"

"Certainly not! You know that well enough!"

"True! He's never here. Oh, Cleopatra, how cruel of you to wake me, to tell me so!"

"But why is he always away?"

"I see him when he chooses," sighed Berenice, in grief. "During the day-- for a minute or two."

"Did you not see him yesterday?"

"Yes. I met him by the roadside. I was in my litter, he got in with me."

"As far as the Palace?"

"No--not quite. He was still in sight nearly as far as the gates."

"What did you tell him?"

"Oh, I was furious! I said most wicked things. Yes, darling, I did!"

"Indeed?" rejoined the young girl, ironically.

"Perhaps too wicked, for he never answered me. Just when I felt myself scarlet with rage, he recited a long fable for my benefit. As I did not quite understand it, I did not know how to reply. He slipped out of the litter, just as I thought of keeping him by my side.

"Why not have called him back?"

"I feared to displease him."

Cleopatra, swelling with indignation, took her sister by the shoulders, and looking her full in the face, spoke thus to her:

"How now! You are the Queen, the people's G.o.ddess! Half the world belongs to you; all that Rome does not rule is yours; you reign over the Nile and the entire ocean. You even reign over the heavens, since you are nearer to the ear of the G.o.ds than anyone, and yet you cannot reign over the man you love!"

"Reign . . . reign!" said Berenice, hanging her head. "That's easy to say, but, look you, one does not reign over a lover as if dominating a slave."

"And why not, pray?"

"Because . . . But you cannot understand! To love, is to prefer the happiness of another to that which we formerly selfishly desired before meeting the loved one. Should Demetrios be content, so likewise would I be, even weeping and far from his side. I wish for no delight that is not his, and all I bestow on him gives me great joy."

"You know not how to love," said the young la.s.s.

Berenice smiled sadly, then she stretched her two arms stiffly on either side of her couch, as she jutted out her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and arched her loins.

"Ah, little presumptuous virgin!" she sighed. "When for the first time you'll swoon in loving conjunction, then only will you understand why one is never the queen of a man who causes you thus to lose your senses."

"A woman can always be a queen should she so will it."

"But she has no longer any power of will."

"I have! Why should you not be the same? You are my elder!"

Berenice smiled again.

"My little girl, upon whom do you exercise your strength of will? On which one of your dolls?"

"On my lover!" said Cleopatra.

Without allowing her sister time to find words to express her stupefaction, the damsel went on talking with growing vivacity.

"I have got a lover! Yes, I've a lover! Why should I not have a sweetheart like everybody else, the same as you and my mother, and my aunt, and the lowest woman in Egypt? A lover? Of a surety! And why not, prithee, seeing that for six months past, I am a woman, and you have not yet found me a husband? Aye, Berenice, I have a lover. I'm no longer a little girl. I know now! I know! Be silent--say nothing, for I know more than you. I, too, have clasped my arms till they were fit to snap, over the naked back of a man who thought he was my master. I, too, have crooked my toes in the empty air, feeling as if life was leaving me, and I've died a hundred limes over in the same way as you have swooned, but immediately afterwards, Berenice, I was on my feet, upstanding, erect!

Say naught to me, for I am ashamed to claim you as my Sovereign--you, who are someone's slave!"

Little Cleopatra drew herself up to her full height, endeavouring to appear as tall as possible. She took her head in her hands, like an Asiatic queen trying on a tiara.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Seated on the bed, her feet tucked under her, the elder sister listened, and then knelt, so she could come near to the young la.s.s and place her hands on Cleopatra's sloping, slender shoulders.

"So you've a lover?" Berenice now spoke timidly, almost respectfully.

"If you don't believe me, you can look," replied the girl, curtly.

"When do you see him?" sighed Berenice.

"Three times a day."