astily
pushed the curling hair off his damp brow, and said:

"I do not understand. What is it you ask?"

"I only asked whether we should be allowed to see the portrait," she
answered timidly. "I was wrong to interrupt you. But how hot your head
is! Drink again before you go on. Had you really finished by sundown?"

Alexander shook his head, drank, and then went on more calmly: "No, no!
It is a pity you spoke. In fancy I was painting her still. There is the
moon rising already. I must make haste. I have told you all this for
Philip's sake, not for my own."

"I will not interrupt you again, I assure you," said Melissa. "Well,
well," said her brother. "There is not much that is pleasant left to
tell. Where was I?"

"Painting, so long as it was light--"

"To be sure--I remember. It began to grow dark. Then lamps were
brought in, large ones, and as many as I wished for. Just before sunset
Seleukus, Korinna's father, came in to look upon his daughter once more.
He bore his grief with dignified composure; yet by his child's bier he
found it hard to be calm. But you can imagine all that. He invited me to
eat, and the food they brought might have tempted a full man to excess,
but I could only swallow a few mouthfuls. Berenike--the mother--did not
even moisten her lips, but Seleukus did duty for us both, and this I
could see displeased his wife. During supper the merchant made many
inquiries about me and my father; for he had heard Philip's praises from
his brother Theophilus, the high-priest. I learned from him that Korinna
had caught her sickness from a slave girl she had nursed, and had died
of the fever in three days. But while I sat listening to him, as he
talked and ate, I could not keep my eyes off his wife who reclined
opposite to me silent and motionless, for the gods had created Korinna
in her very image. The lady Berenike's eyes indeed sparkle with a
lurid, I might almost say an alarming, fire, but they are shaped like
Korinna's. I said so, and asked whether they were of the same color;
I wanted to know for my portrait. On this Seleukus referred me to a
picture painted by old Sosibius, who has lately gone to Rome to work in
Caesar's new baths. He last year painted the wall of a room in the mer
chant's country house at Kanopus. In the center of the picture stands
Galatea, and I know it now to be a good and true likeness.

"The picture I finished that evening is to be placed at the head of
the young girl's sarcop