But everything connected with those two is so base and shameful that I will not allow it to cloud this pleasant hour.

Yet the fear that Alexas might have slandered me to the Queen is not groundless.
"He is as shrewd as his brother, and through Antony, into whose favour he ingratiated himself, is always in communication with Cleopatra.

He went to the war with him." "I learned that too late, and am utterly powerless against Antony," replied Archibius.
"But was it not natural that I should fear he had prejudiced the Queen ?" asked Barine.

"At any rate, I imagined that I detected a hostile expression in her eyes, and it repelled me, though at first I had been so strongly attracted towards her." "And had not that other stepped between you, you could not have turned from her again!" said Archibius.

"The first time I saw her I was but a mere boy, and she--as I have already said--a child eight years old." Barine nodded gratefully to Archibius, brought the distaff to her mother, poured water into the wine in the mixing vessel, and after at first leaning comfortably back among the cushions, she soon bent forward in a listening attitude, with her elbow propped on her knee, and her chin supported by her hand.