But at the sight of his brother his fist clenched.
He would neither speak to him, nor answer his questions.

The longer he sat there gazing into vacancy, the firmer became his conviction that Nitetis had deceived him,--that she had pretended to love him while her heart really belonged to Bartja.

How shamefully they had made sport of him! How deeply rooted must have been the faithlessness of this clever hypocrite, if the mere news that his brother loved some one else could not only destroy all her powers of dissimulation, but actually deprive her of consciousness! When Nitetis left the hall, Otanes, the father of Phaedime had called out: "The Egyptian women seem to take great interest in the love-affairs of their brothers-in-law.

The Persian women are not so generous with their feelings; they keep them for their husbands." Cambyses was too proud to let it be seen that he had heard these words; like the ostrich, he feigned deafness and blindness in order not to seem aware of the looks and murmurs of his guests, which all went to prove that he had been deceived.
Bartja could have had no share in her perfidy; she had loved this handsome youth, and perhaps all the more because she had not been able to hope for a return of her love.

If he had had the slightest suspicion of his brother, he would have killed him on the spot.