Page:Afterglow; pastels of Greek Egypt, 69 B.C. (IA afterglowpastels00buck).pdf/88

84 who cast covetous eyes on his kingdom: they were notoriously weak before women.

He gazed intently at Quintus, who lay silent, a half smile on his lips, watching the slave girls. Auletes followed his glance toward a girl with plumb [sic], languorous limbs.

This Roman had been recalled and was leaving at sunrise; yet, even this slave girl might tempt him to delay. And the famous Caesar—did not his soldiers, in his Triumph, cry "Romans, look to your wives!" and call him "Adulterer", laughing the while, and without rebuke? With this Caesar, if he lived, or with another like him, Egypt had to deal, Egypt and the glory of Egypt on the flushed brow of a woman.

If this should be the will of the gods, he, Auletes, would prepare her. Every artifice and cunning strategy known to men, every scheme to make power of her