“It is well,” said Euergetes at last, and with a decisive gesture of his hand he dismissed Eulaeus and his friend from the room.
Then he stood, as pale as death, his teeth set in his under-lip, and gazing blankly at the ground.
He had his will, Publius Cornelius Scipio lived no more; his ambition might reach without hindrance the utmost limits of his desires, and yet he could not rejoice; he could not escape from a deep horror of himself, and he struck his broad forehead with his clenched fists. He was face to face with his first dastardly murder.
“And what news does Eulaeus bring?” asked Cleopatra in anxious excitement, for she had never before seen her brother like this; but he did not hear these words, and it was not till she had repeated them with more insistence that he collected himself, stared at her from head to foot with a fixed, gloomy expression, and then, letting his hand fall on her shoulder so heavily that her knees bent under her and she gave a little cry, asked her in a low but meaning tone:
“Are you strong enough to bear to hear great news?”
“Speak,” she said in a low voice, and her eyes were fixed on his lips while she pressed her hand on her heart. Her anxiety to hear fettered her to him, as with a tangible tie, and he, as if he must burst it by the force of his utterance, said with awful solemnity, in his deepest tones and emphasizing every syllable:
“Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica is dead.”
At these words Cleopatra’s pale cheeks were suddenly dyed with a crimson glow, and clenching her little hands she struck them together, and exclaimed with flashing eyes:
“I hoped so!”
Euergetes withdrew a step from his sister, and said: “You were right. It is not only among the race of gods that the most fearful of all are women!”