The report of the wager soon spread. Nothing was talked of in the city but the mysterious plan for the coming night when the Bruchium would see all its former splendours surpassed. Reasonable men shrugged their shoulders. Ten million sesterces for a single repast! It was not possible! Others crowded together to discuss among themselves what new extravagance the Queen was concocting to shake the finances of the kingdom. The next evening the same guests assembled in the vast hall of the arcades. They were alive with curiosity. What were they gathered together to witness? What spectacle could justify the enormous expense that had been announced? But on entering the hall they saw nothing out of the ordinary. There were the same brilliant illuminations, the same gorgeous display of flowers and gold plate; all the exquisite details were just the same. With their customary ceremony the sovereigns entered. The Queen was so simply dressed that only her jewels attracted attention. Her passion for them was well known and she had continually added to the countless treasures of the Lagidæ. Wherever she went she had acquired the rarest stones. While at Rome the Etruscan workers had given their entire time to making jewellery of her own designing. Her preference had always been for pearls. She had collected them from the Persian gulf, from Ceylon, from Malaysia, and whenever a ship-owner went to India he had orders to bring back any exceptional pearls that he found there, regardless of their cost. She wore them everywhere, around her neck, about her arms, fastened in her belt, of every shape and tint. This evening, however, she wore only two. But such pearls! Their size, their beauty of outline, were beyond all estimate. Suspended by an invisible thread of gold, they gleamed in her ears like drops of dew on the petals of a rose. The marvel was that nature had twice produced such perfect pearls, identical in form and sheen, and that twice they had been found by man, although centuries apart. The first had been sent to Olympias from Ophir, by her son Alexander, and the second had only recently been discovered near the coast of Malay after exhaustive searching. Did they reflect her shining eyes, were they tinted with the roses on her young cheeks; or were they, as legend says, living creatures who are affected when their fate is in the balance? The banquet went on, lavish, but a little dull, as when an expected diversion fails. Dessert was served, and still nothing had happened. There was a general air of disappointment. Antony alone was in high spirits. He looked on himself as the winner of the wager and was amusing himself by imagining the prize he could demand. His joking became flippant: "By Bacchus, your supper is not worth the ten million sesterces that you promised," he cried, impatiently, as he leaned toward Cleopatra. "Don't be so certain," she replied: "you have not won yet."