Sardou's Cleopatra — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

SARDOU’S CLEOPATRA. 81. CHAPTER VII. VARIUM ET MUTABILE. When Iras returned to the palace, she had no time to indulge in the grief that consumed her at the impending separation from Pharon, for her _royal mistress had sent for her, and she was obliged to obey at once the summons. Hastily bathing her eyes and removing from her cheeks the traces of her tears, she hurried to a small room in a wing of the palace which bordered one side of the gardens, and where Cleopatra was wont at this hour to give audience to the philoso- phers, sages, and scientists, it delighted her to honor. Incomparable in beauty as was this royal daughter of the Nile, she was no less matchless in intelligence. In fact, perhaps her most distin- Gomicbooks)