CHAPTER V.

The procession was over.

At the great service which had been performed before him in the Greek
Serapeum, Ptolemy Philometor had endowed the priests not with the whole
but with a considerable portion of the land concerning which they had
approached him with many petitions. After the court had once more
quitted Memphis and the procession was broken up, the sisters returned to
their room, Irene with crimson cheeks and a smile on her lips, Klea with
a gloomy and almost threatening light in her eyes.

As the two were going to their room in silence a temple-servant called to
Klea, desiring her to go with him to the high-priest, who wished to speak
to her. Klea, without speaking, gave her water-jar to Irene and was
conducted into a chamber of the temple, which was used for keeping the
sacred vessels in. There she sat down on a bench to wait. The two men
who in the morning had visited the Pastophorium had also followed in the
procession with the royal family. At the close of the solemnities
Publius had parted from his companion without taking leave, and without
looking to the right or to the left, he had hastened back to the
Pastophorium and to the cell of Serapion, the recluse.

The old man heard from afar the younger man's footstep, which fell on the
earth with a firmer and more decided tread than that of the softly-
stepping priests of Serapis, and he greeted him warmly with signs and
words.

Publius thanked him coolly and gravely, and said, dryly enough and with
incisive brevity: