trarily in the intercourse of a young couple than when, after a long
separation, there is anything whatever to forgive.

Besides, many words which the two exchanged escaped her hearing, for they
talked in low tones, and it was hot in the tent. Often the fatigue she
felt after the sleepless night bowed her head, still comely with its
unwrinkled face, though she was no longer young; then she quickly raised
it again.

Neither Daphne nor Hermon noticed her. The former at once perceived that
something was weighing on the sculptor's mind, but he did not need any
long inquiry. He had come to confide his troubles to her, and she kindly
lightened the task for him by asking why he had not gone to breakfast
with the Pelusinians.

"Because I am not fit for gay company today," was the reply.

"Again dissatisfied with Fate?"

"True, it has given me small cause for contentment of late."

"Put in place of Fate the far-seeing care of the gods, and you will
accept what befalls you less unkindly."

"Let us stick to us mortals, I entreat you."

"Very well, then. Your Demeter does not fully satisfy you."

A discontented shrug of the shoulders was the reply.

"Then work with twofold zeal upon the Arachne."

"Although one model I hoped to obtain forsook me, and my soul is
estranged from the other."

"Althea?" she asked eagerly, and he nodded assent.

Daphne clapped her hands joyfully, exclaiming so loudly that Chrysilla's
head sprang up with a jerk. "It could not help being so! O Hermon! how
anxious I have been! Now, I thought, when this horrible woman represented
the transformation into the spider with such repulsive accuracy, Hermon
will believe that this is the true, and therefore the right, ideal; nay,
I was deceived myself while gazing. But, eternal gods! as soon as I
imagined this Arachne in marble or chryselephantine work, what a painful
feeling overpowered me!"

"Of course!" he replied in an irritated tone. "The thirst for beauty, to
which you all succumb, would not have much satisfaction to expect from
this work."

"No, no, no!" Daphne interrupted in a louder tone than usual, and with
the earnest desire to convince him. "Precisely because I transported
myself into your tendency, your aspirations, I recognised the danger. O
Hermon! what produced so sinister an effect by the wavering light of the
lamps and torches, while the thunderstorm was rising--the strands of
hair, the outspread fingers, the bewildered, staring b