THE GIRL (_who has wakened, and peeped cautiously from her nest to see who is speaking_). Old gentleman.
CAESAR (_starting violently, and clutching his sword_). Immortal gods!
CAESAR (_stupefied_). "Old gentleman: don't run away!!!" This! To Julius Caesar!
CAESAR. Sphinx: you presume on your centuries. I am younger than you, though your voice is but a girl's voice as yet.
THE GIRL. Climb up here, quickly; or the Romans will come and eat you.
CAESAR (_running forward past the Sphinx's shoulder, and seeing her_). A child at its breast! A divine child!
THE GIRL. Come up quickly. You must get up at its side and creep round.
CLEOPATRA. You must not be disrespectful to me, or the Sphinx will let the Romans eat you. Come up. It is quite cosy here.
CAESAR (_to himself_). What a dream! What a magnificent dream! Only let me not wake, and I will conquer ten continents to pay for dreaming it out to the end. (_He climbs to the Sphinx's flank, and presently reappears to her on the pedestal, stepping round its right shoulder._)
CLEOPATRA. Take care. That's right. Now sit down: you may have its other paw. (_She seats herself comfortably on its left paw._) It is very powerful and will protect us; but (_shivering, and with plaintive loneliness_) it would not take any notice of me or keep me company. I am glad you have come: I was very lonely. Did you happen to see a white cat anywhere?
CAESAR (_sitting slowly down on the right paw in extreme wonderment_). Have you lost one?
CLEOPATRA. Yes: the sacred white cat: is it not dreadful? I brought him here to sacrifice him to the Sphinx; but when we got a little way from the city a black cat called him, and he jumped out of my arms and ran away to it. Do you think that the black cat can have been my great-great-great-grandmother?
CAESAR (_staring at her_). Your great-great-great-grandmother! Well, why not? Nothing would surprise me on this night of nights.
CLEOPATRA. I think it must have been. My great-grandmother's great-grandmother was a black kitten of the sacred white cat; and the river Nile made her his seventh wife. That is why my hair is so wavy. And I always want to be let do as I like, no matter whether it is the will of the gods or not: that is because my blood is made with Nile water.