Sardou's Cleopatra — page 199: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

, 184 SARDOU’S CLEOPATRA. other, great as Ceesar, would court my love to be refused for Antony! And yet, sighing kings have laid their scepters at my feet, dare I say not wholly for my crown? But to be refused for you. To be less than wife to you, I have dis- dained their lawful suit. ‘The slanderous tongues, whose utterance we have just heard, have accused me of: Ah! I will not, cannot repeat it. To some, my lord, I plead guilty. I am no cold, Roman woman. ‘The fires of the Orient burn hotly in my veins. To their accusations, you answered: ‘Before Tarsus, her life was her own to do with as she chose.’ ‘There spoke my gen- erous lord. Thanks, thanks, noble Antony, for those words. But since first.my happy eyes gazed on your dear face, though a thousand rumors shriek their lies into the gaping world, not once, I swear it by Isis and Osiris, not once have I been faithless in thought, word or deed, to the man who has been, is, and ever will be, the — god of my idolatry !” As if suffocated by her emotion, she paused, her lovely eyes suffused, her bosom heaving beneath the folds of her tunic. Could this be royal Egypt, this panting, trembling woman, changing color with every throb of her heart? - comicbooks.co