The hair-dresser stood in especially high favour. Her profession enjoyed various privileges, not the least being her right to have long and intimate audiences with the Queen, to be consulted, and, above all, to be allowed to place a flower, a feather, or the diadem, in the Queen's hair, thus having her chance to win royal approval. Iras, the Persian, had filled this office for the past three years. The fairy-lightness of her touch and her sweet breath were celebrated. Hearing them spoken of when the young girl was an attendant of Mariamne, Herod's wife, whose auburn hair reached to her knees, Cleopatra had elected to have her for her own service. This served the double purpose of securing a talented artist for herself, and of depriving a woman whom she detested of a cherished attendant. Iras had been brought to the Egyptian court by a merchant of perfumes, who, under pretext of giving her a new essence to inhale, had put her to sleep and carried her off without resistance. Although the new court was far grander than that of Judea, even as the sun surpasses the moon, Iras wept floods of tears at the change. Her companions, who envied her good fortune, exclaimed: "What, you weep, when your hands have the distinguished honour of adorning the divine Cleopatra!" But Iras had a loving heart and the splendour of her new surroundings could not reconcile her to the separation from Queen Mariamne, to whom she was warmly attached. This, at least, was her feeling for the first few days when, still a novice, she assisted at the ceremony of the royal toilet. One day, Cleopatra, noticing the pallor of her serving-woman, spoke to her. In her incomparably musical voice she inquired why the young girl was so sad. "Are you homesick? Is it regret at leaving your family, or your lover?" Iras replied that her mother was dead and that she had left no lover behind on the shores of the Aracus. She could not, however, cease to grieve for Jerusalem and Herod's palace, where the Queen had been so unfailingly kind to her. However insignificant the feelings of a slave might be in the eyes of this world-famous beauty, Cleopatra was touched by the ardent sincerity of Iras. It was just at the time when she had returned from Rome, alone and full of grief. She had a sudden wish to make this young girl, who was practically in exile, grow fond of her. Nothing could be easier. A few kind words, some presents offered with tact, quickly warmed the poor little heart that distress had chilled. Giving her her freedom later completed the conquest and aroused in Iras as fervent an adoration as any divinity had ever been offered; a flame willing to consume itself at any moment for the Queen, and ready, too, to burn itself out the day that this adored mistress ceased to illuminate the world.