POTHINUS (bowing his head submissively). It is so.
CLEOPATRA (exultant). Aha!
POTHINUS (raising his eyes keenly to hers). Is Cleopatra then indeed a Queen, and no longer Caesar’s prisoner and slave?
CLEOPATRA. Pothinus: we are all Caesar’s slaves—all we in this land of Egypt—whether we will or no. And she who is wise enough to know this will reign when Caesar departs.
POTHINUS. You harp on Caesar’s departure.
CLEOPATRA. What if I do?
POTHINUS. Does he not love you?
CLEOPATRA. Love me! Pothinus: Caesar loves no one. Who are those we love? Only those whom we do not hate: all people are strangers and enemies to us except those we love. But it is not so with Caesar. He has no hatred in him: he makes friends with everyone as he does with dogs and children. His kindness to me is a wonder: neither mother, father, nor nurse have ever taken so much care for me, or thrown open their thoughts to me so freely.
POTHINUS. Well: is not this love?
CLEOPATRA. What! When he will do as much for the first girl he meets on his way back to Rome? Ask his slave, Britannus: he has been just as good to him. Nay, ask his very horse! His kindness is not for anything in me: it is in his own nature.