"Cleopatra loves you. Your precious body is more than all the world to her. But can she protect your power as we, your friends, can?--the defenders of your cause who have left everything to follow your standards? If this power is lost what will become of all of us? Ruined, hunted, condemned to flee from the vengeance of Octavius, what remains for us all but exile?" The Imperator strode up and down his tent. He breathed heavily; his emotions seemed to choke him. Without having put them in actual words these truths perhaps had been already in his mind. Now, as they were laid definitely before him, he had a sudden desire to see clearly, even to the foundations of the situation. "Speak!" he commanded. "What reason have you for thinking that the Queen has given up her ambition to reign with me in the Capitol at Rome?" "The advice she is giving you!" "You know what she advises?" Dellius promptly recalled the number of times that the Queen had opposed their going forward to battle. Only a few days before at Corcyra, at Leucadia, when all the conditions were propitious, she had invented excuses for deferring action. "It makes me believe that Cleopatra fears defeat less than she dreads a victory which would make you master of Rome!" Antony made a signal for his officer to leave him. He needed to be alone. His tent, but feebly lighted by a smoking lamp, was very dim. He dropped on the couch, on which a lion's skin was spread. A storm was near. He felt the earth tremble, and rumbling thunder filled the air. It seemed as though everything most precious to him had received a sudden shock and were whirling around him. Could it be true that Cleopatra no longer coveted for him the rank of master of the world? In reality Cleopatra had not ceased to desire victory for her lover, but she desired it in a manner which, as Dellius had pointed out, differed from that of the Romans. They, eager to return to their homes and enjoy the rewards that they felt they deserved, urged on the Imperator a war to the finish; she did all in her power to hold him back. Whether she had lost confidence in those warlike virtues that she herself had helped to weaken, and foresaw the possibility, if she risked all, of losing the heritage of her fathers; whether she dreaded that complete triumph which would lead Antony to Rome, she had given up her boundless ambitions and was now content with a policy of division. If the dominion of the Orient, commanded by Antony, were assured to her, she would cheerfully have abandoned Italy and its barbarous provinces, Gaul, Spain, and Mauritania, to Octavius and the Republic. Was this unexpected and complete change of purpose caprice or inconsistency?