She knew that the artist Leonax, Barine's father, had been Charmian's lover; but this did not justify her favouring the woman who had robbed her niece of the heart of the man whom she--as Charmian knew--had loved from childhood.
Charmian had just had a long conversation with her brother, and had also learned in the palace that Barine had been summoned to the Queen's presence in the middle of the night; so, firmly persuaded that evil was intended to the young woman who had already passed through so many agitating scenes of joy and sorrow, she entered the waiting-room, and her pleasant though no longer youthful face, framed in smooth, grey hair, was greeted by Barine as the shipwrecked mariner hails the sight of land.
All the emotions which had darkened and embittered her soul were soothed.

She hastened towards her friend's sister, as a frightened child seeks its mother, and Charmian perceived what was stirring in her heart.
It would not do, under existing circumstances, to kiss her in the palace, but she drew Leonax's daughter towards her to show Iras that she was ready to extend a protecting hand over the persecuted woman.

But Barine gazed at her with pleading glances, beseeching aid, whispering amid her tears: "Help me, Charmian.

She has tortured, insulted, humiliated me with looks and words--so cruelly, so spitefully! Help me; I can bear no more." Charmian shook her kind head and urged her in a whisper to calm herself.
She had robbed Iras of her lover; she should remember that.

Cost what it might, she must not shed another tear.