He ushered the young Athenian into a large room furnished with luxurious magnificence. Before them stood Olympias, with a rod of ebony in her grasp, and at her feet upon the silken carpet crouched a weeping girl with bare white shoulders, marked with red where the rod had fallen. The queen turned upon them with blazing anger in her great black eyes and the wrathful color on her cheeks.
"Who enters here unbidden?" she demanded sternly, and then in a milder tone she added: "Is it you, Philotas? These girls will kill me yet with their stupidity. I wish I could drown them all in the sea! Ah!"
She swung up the rod and brought it down upon a great vase of Phœnician glass, which flew into a thousand fragments. She laughed and threw the rod from her.
"There, now I feel better!" she exclaimed, drawing a long breath. "You may go, Chloe. Dry your eyes, child; you shall have your freedom. Who is this whom you have brought me, Philotas?"
"It is Clearchus, the Athenian, whom the king sends," Philotas answered.
"I remember," she said quickly, turning to Clearchus. "You were robbed of your sweetheart. Do you love her very much?"
"I love her better than my life," Clearchus replied simply.
"Will you never grow weary of her and cast her off, as Philip did me?" she persisted.
"If I find her, I will never willingly let her go out of my sight again," the young man declared.
"But did not the Pythia tell you that you would find her if you followed my son?" she inquired.