th this that
stood before him.

But he did not take long to collect himself for the Bithynian's beauty
filled him with profound feeling and it was with a sort of pious
exaltation that he grasped the plastic material and moulded it into a
form resembling his sitter. For a whole hour not a word passed between
them, but Pollux often sighed deeply and now then a groan of painful
anxiety escaped him.

Antinous broke the silence to ask Pollux about Selene. His heart was full
of her, and there was no other man who knew her, and whom he could
venture to entrust with his secret. Indeed it was only to speak to her
that he had come to the artist so early. While Pollux modelled and
scraped Antinous told him of all that had happened the previous night. He
lamented having lost the silver quiver when he was upset into the water
and regretted that the rose-colored chiton should afterwards have
suffered a reduction in length at the hands of his pursuer. An
exclamation of surprise, a word of sympathy, a short pause in the
movement of his hand and tool, were all the demonstration on the artist's
part, to which the story of Selene's adventure and the loss of his
master's costly property gave rise; his whole attention was absorbed in
his occupation. The farther his work progressed the higher rose his
admiration for his model. He felt as if intoxicated with noble wine as he
worked to reproduce this incarnation of the ideal of umblemished youthful
and manly beauty. The passion of artistic procreation fired his blood,
and threw every thing else--even the history of Selene's fall into the
sea, and her subsequent rescue--into the region of commonplace. Still he
had not been inattentive, and what he heard must have had some effect in
his mind; for long after Antinous had ended his narrative, he said in a
low voice and as if speaking to the bust, which was already assuming
definite form:

"It is a wonderful thing!" and again a little later; "There was always
something grand in that unhappy creature."

He had worked without interruption for nearly four hours, when standing
back from the table, he looked anxiously, first at his work and then at
Antinous, and then asked him:

"How will that do?"

The Bithynian gave eager expression to his approbation, and Pollux had,
in fact, done wonders in the short time. The wax began to display in a
much reduced scale the whole figure of the beautiful youth and in the
very same attitude which the young Di