No word of love had ever been exchanged between him and Barine, but how kindly she had always looked at him, how willingly she had accepted trivial services! Now she was lost.

At first this had merely saddened him, but after he had drunk the wine, and Antyllus, Antony's son, in the presence of the revellers, over whom Caesarion presided as "symposiarch"-- [Director of a banquet.]--had accused Barine of capturing hearts by magic spells, he had arrived at the conviction that he, too, had been shamefully allured and betrayed.
He had served for a toy, he said to himself, unless she had really loved him and merely preferred Dion on account of his wealth.

In any case, he felt justified in cherishing resentment against Barine, and with the number of goblets which he drained his jealous rage increased.
When urged to join in the escapade which now burdened his conscience he consented with a burning brain in order to punish her for the wrong which, in his heated imagination, she had done him.
All this he withheld from the older men and merely briefly described the splendid banquet which Caesarion, pallid and listless as ever, had directed, and Antyllus especially had enlivened with the most reckless mirth.
The "King of kings" and Antony's son had escaped from their tutors on the pretext of a hunting excursion, and the chief huntsman had not grudged them the pleasure--only they were obliged to promise him that they would be ready to set out for the desert early the next morning.
When, after the banquet, the mixing-vessels were brought out and the beakers were filled more rapidly, Antyllus whispered several times to Caesarion and then turned the conversation upon Barine, the fairest of the fair, destined by the immortals for the greatest and highest of mankind.

This was the "King of kings," Caesarion, and he also claimed the favour of the gods for himself.

But everybody knew that Aphrodite deemed herself greater than the highest of kings, and therefore Barine ventured to close her doors upon their august symposiarch in a manner which could not fail to be unendurable, not only to him but to all the youth of Alexandria.