Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/118

96 more fair in face, though less fair in lineage, than her older companion.

As the two girls held fast to each other in the audience chamber, covering their faces with their mantles, that their beauty might not tempt the gaze of the courtiers in waiting, there was a stir and then a hush among the dark-hued attendants who had been buzzing about the doorways, that boded the coming of the monarch. Close by one of the marble columns which flanked the further entrance, the dignified Aristotle awaited the royal presence, and behind him another figure also stood expectant. Even Campaspe, veiled as she was in her shrouding mantle, could not keep back some furtive glances that rested on this latter figure as he leaned with careless grace against the column. The beauty of his attitude, the full white throat which his silken tunic left half bare, the short curling rings of hair on his well-poised head, the eyes that shone with the light of genius, all made him more resemble the god Apollo, to the eyes of the simple maiden, than any earth-born man with whom she could compare him.

“Timoclea,” she whispered softly, “is yonder man the great Alexander?”

“No, silly child,” answered the older. “In Alexander’s eyes you will see war’s lightnings. [sic] Yonder man is more like a poet, or perhaps some