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He remained impassive, looking at her, the sheikh robes doing their damnedest to make him irresistible. And then suddenly his expression broke her heart; no use denying it.
In a tremulous voice, she said, "You gave her more of it."
"You haven't seen her," he said quietly, his voice unhurried, his eyes full of undisguised sorrow. "You have not heard the sound of her voice! You have not heard her weeping. Don't judge me. She is as alive as I am! I brought her back. Let me judge myself."
She clasped her hands tightly, hurting the fingers of her right hand with the fingers of the other.
"What do you mean, you don't know where she is?"
"I mean she escaped from me. She attacked me; she tried to kill me. And she is mad. Lord Rutherford was right. Absolutely mad. She would have killed him if I hadn't stopped her. The elixir hasn't changed that. It merely healed her body."
He took a step towards her, and before she could stop herself she turned her back. She was going to cry again; oh, so many tears. And she didn't want to.
"Pray to your gods," she said, looking at him through the mirror. "Ask them what to do. My God would only condemn you. But whatever happens with this creature, one thing is certain." She turned and looked him in the eye. "You must never, never brew the elixir again. Whatever remains, consume it. Do it now in my presence. And then erase the formula from your mind."
No response. Slowly he removed the headdress, and ran his hand back through his hair. For some reason this only made him look all the more gallant and seductive. A biblical figure now with flowing hair and flowing robes. It maddened her slightly, and made the threat of tears all the more sharp.
"Do you realize what you're saying?"
"If it's too dangerous to consume it, then find someplace far out in the desert sands, and make a deep shaft into which to pour it! But get rid of it."
"Let me put a question to you."
"No." She turned her back again. She covered her ears. When she looked up she saw in the mirror that he was right at her shoulder. There was that awareness again of her own world destroyed, of a brilliant light having thrown all else into hopeless shadow.
Gently, he took her hands, and lowered them from her ears. He looked into her eyes through the mirror, his body warm and close to her.
"Julie, last night. If instead of taking the elixir with me to the museum, if instead of pouring it over Cleopatra's remains--if instead, I'd offered it to you, wouldn't you have taken it?"
She refused to answer. Roughly he grabbed her wrist and turned her around.
"Answer me! If I had never seen her lying there in that glass case ..."
"But you did."
She meant to hold firm, but he surprised her with his kiss, with the roughness and the desperation of his embrace, with his hands moving over her face and her cheek almost cruelly. He was saying her name like a prayer. He murmured something in the ancient Egyptian tongue, she didn't know what it was. And then he said softly in Latin that he loved her. He loved her. It seemed both explanation and apology, somehow, the reason for all this suffering. He loved her. He said it as if he were just realizing it, and now her tears were coming again, stupidly. It infuriated her.
She pulled back; then kissed him and let him kiss her again, and sank against his chest, merely letting him hold her.
Then softly she said:
"What does she look like?"
He sighed.
"Is she beautiful?"
"She always was. She is now. She is the woman who seduced Caesar, and Mark Antony, and the whole world."
She stiffened, drawing away from him.
"She is as beautiful as you are," he said. "But you are right. She is not Cleopatra. She is a stranger in Cleopatra's body. A monster looking through Cleopatra's eyes. And struggling to use Cleopatra's wits to her own purposeless advantage."
What more was there to say? What could she do? It was in his hands, it had been since the beginning. She forced him to release her and then she sat down and leaned her elbow on the arm of the chair and rested her forehead in her hand.
"I'll find her," he said. "And I will undo this awful error. I will put her back into the darkness from which I took her. And she will suffer only a little while. And then she will sleep."
"Oh, but it's too awful! There must be some other way...." She broke into sobs.
