r, like Philip, I should be moved to wonder
why a man can only be wet when the rain falls on him, and yet can be so
wretched when disaster falls on another. But do not look at me with such
terror in your great eyes. I swear to you that, as a man and an artist,
I never felt better, and so I ought properly to be in my usual frame
of mind. But the skeleton at life's festival has been shown to me. What
sort of thing is that? It is an image--the image of a dead man which
was carried round by the Egyptians, and is to this day by the Romans,
to remind the feasters that they should fill every hour with enjoyment,
since enjoyment is all too soon at an end. Such an image, child--"

"You are thinking of the dead girl--Seleukus's daughter--whose portrait
you are painting?" asked Melissa.

Alexander nodded, sat down on the bench by his sister, and, taking up
her needlework, exclaimed "Give us some light, child. I want to see your
pretty face. I want to be sure that Diodorus did not perjure himself
when, at the 'Crane,' the other day, he swore that it had not its match
in Alexandria. Besides, I hate the darkness."

When Melissa returned with the lighted lamp, she found her brother, who
was not wont to keep still, sitting in the place where she had left him.
But he sprang up as she entered, and prevented her further greeting by
exclaiming:

"Patience! patience! You shall be told all. Only I did not want to
worry you on the day of the festival of the dead. And besides, to-morrow
perhaps he will be in a better frame of mind, and next day--"

Melissa became urgent. "If Philip is ill--" she put in.

"Not exactly ill," said he. "He has no fever, no ague-fit, no aches and
pains. He is not in bed, and has no bitter draughts to swallow. Yet is
he not well, any more than I, though but just now, in the dining-hall at
the Elephant, I ate like a starving wolf, and could at this moment jump
over this table. Shall I prove it?"

"No, no," said his sister, in growing distress. "But, if you love me,
tell me at once and plainly--"

"At once and plainly," sighed the painter. "That, in any case, will not
be easy. But I will do my best. You knew Korinna?"

"Seleukus's daughter?"

"She herself--the maiden from whose corpse I am painting her portrait."

"No. But you wanted--"

"I wanted to be brief, but I care even more to be understood; and if you
have never seen with your own eyes, if you do not yourself know what a
miracle of beauty the god