She had pushed aside the foliage of the laurel bushes which concealed her, and, with her hand raised to her ear, stood listening to the two disputants.

When the scoundrel whom she had called husband, and for whom her contempt had become too deep for hate, sneeringly assailed her family as having been fed from generation to generation from the corn-bin of the Museum, she bit her lips.

But they soon curled, as if what she heard aroused her disgust, for the speaker now turned to Dion and accused him of preventing the kindly disposed Regent from increasing the renown of the great Queen and affording her noble heart a pleasure.
"My tongue," he cried, "is the tool which supports me.

Why am I using it here till it is weary and almost paralyzed?
In honour of Cleopatra, our illustrious Queen, and her generous friend, to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude.

Let all who love her and the divine Antony, the new Herakles and Dionysus--both will soon make their entry among us crowned with the laurels of victory--join the Regent and every well-disposed person in seizing yonder bit of land so meanly withheld by base avarice and a sentiment--a sentiment, do you hear ?--which I do not name more plainly, simply because wickedness is repulsive to me, and I do not stand here as an accuser.