And now it was Octavia's turn to stir his heart and conscience. With the wheedling tenderness which, whatever wrong they may have done them, men use toward women they love, he pleaded with Cleopatra:
"I shall be away from you only three days. What are three days when we have a lifetime of love before us?"
But he could not escape from her suspicious eyes. She had suffered too keenly ever again to feel free from distrust. Why should the sorrow and tears of this woman whom she had never seen concern her? No, she would make no concessions. Antony should never again seen Octavia.
The preparations for war went on. Antioch was like a vast parade-ground. The cohorts passed through the gate of Daphne every day. They marched with fearless step, making the paved street ring under their buskins. A brilliant group of horsemen was seen in the midst of the glittering lances and eager young faces. Pell-mell with the Greeks came the Gauls, preceded by their standards. Then came the baggage: mules whose backs bent under the burden of stones and weapons; camels loaded like ships; chariots whose noise resounded through the silent old streets; and troop after troop marched by, each raising dust in its turn. Antony was about to leave for those Mesopotamian plains that stretched out in the distance against the misty blue horizon.
The thought of this new separation, which was bound to be long and beset with dangers—for the Parthians were the most treacherous of enemies—disturbed Cleopatra greatly. The memory of the brief, happy nights, the delicious days together, was only an additional grief; and she had one tormenting thought: Surely Antony had not broken his promise; he had not crossed the inlet of the sea which separated him from Greece? But Octavia was there, always there, expecting him, waiting for him, probably sending messages to him, and of late he had been preoccupied. In spite of his slavish devotion to her, Cleopatra was in continual dread of his secret escape to her rival, were it only for an hour. Before returning to Egypt she was determined to have Octavia go back to Rome. Once there, she would have at least the bitter satisfaction of feeling that her hated rival was at the greater distance from the husband who belonged to them in common.
As Antony was going to camp one morning to review his troops, he noticed that she looked unusually gloomy.
"You are depressed; what is troubling you?" he asked tenderly.
"You know very well why I am miserable. I cannot endure having Octavia so near us," she answered, frowning.
He tried to seem indifferent. "Why should she disturb you, since we never see her?"
"She has come here to defy me."