"You transform the cooing dove which entered my house into a dangerous griffin." "As such you may regard him," said the other, warningly.

"You will be a welcome guest, Barine, but I invited you, whom I have loved from your earliest childhood, the daughter of my dearest friend, not merely to do you a service at Irenia, but to save from grief or even annoyance the person to whom--who is not aware of it--I owe everything." The words conveyed to both ladies the knowledge that, though they were dear to Archibius, he would sacrifice them, and with them, perhaps, all the rest of the world, for the peace and happiness of the Queen.
Barine had expected nothing else.

She knew that Cleopatra had made the philosopher's son a wealthy man and the owner of extensive estates; but she also felt that the source of his loyal devotion to the Queen, over whom he watched like a tender father, was due to other causes.

Cleopatra prized him also.

Had he been ambitious, he could have stood at the helm of the ship of state, as Epitrop long ago, but--the whole city knew it--he had more than once refused to accept a permanent office, because he believed that he could serve his mistress better as an unassuming, unnoticed counsellor.