“But she has no longer any power of will.”
“I have! Why should you not be the same? You are my elder!”
Berenice smiled again.
“My little girl, upon whom do you exercise your strength of will? On which one of your dolls?”
“On my lover!” said Cleopatra.
Without allowing her sister time to find words to express her stupefaction, the damsel went on talking with growing vivacity.
“I have got a lover! Yes, I’ve a lover! Why should I not have a sweetheart like everybody else, the same as you and my mother, and my aunt, and the lowest woman in Egypt? A lover? Of a surety! And why not, prithee, seeing that for six months past, I am a woman, and you have not yet found me a husband? Aye, Berenice, I have a lover. I’m no longer a little girl. I know now! I know! Be silent—say nothing, for I know more than you. I, too, have clasped my arms till they were fit to snap, over the naked back of a man who thought he was my master. I, too, have crooked my toes in the empty air, feeling as if life was leaving me, and I’ve died a hundred times over in the same way as you have swooned, but immediately afterwards, Berenice, I was on my feet, upstanding, erect! Say naught to me, for I am ashamed to claim you as my Sovereign—you, who are someone’s slave!”
Little Cleopatra drew herself up to her full height, endeavouring to appear as tall as possible. She took her head in her hands, like an Asiatic queen trying on a tiara.
Seated on the bed, her feet tucked under her, the elder sister listened, and then knelt, so she could come near to the young lass and place her hands on Cleopatra’s sloping, slender shoulders.