nt coloured mosaic pictures covered the floor and
many flat spaces above door and windows, but gold and silver had been
sparingly used.

Masterpieces of painting and sculpture were the ornaments of the room. In
the antechamber, where Hermon waited for the King, Proclus mentioned one
of the finest statues of Alexander by Lysippus, and an exquisite Eros by
Praxiteles.

The period of waiting, however, became so long to the spoiled artist that
he anticipated the monarch's appearance with painful discomfort, and the
result of the few minutes which Ptolemy II devoted to his reception was
far behind the hopes he had fixed upon them.

In former days he had often seen the narrow-shouldered man of barely
medium height who, to secure his own safety, had had two brothers killed
and sent another into exile, but now ruled Egypt shrewdly and prudently,
and developed the prosperity of Alexandria with equal energy and
foresight.

Now, for the first time, Hermon heard him speak. He could not deny that
his voice was unusually pleasant in tone, yet it unmistakably issued from
the lips of a sufferer.

The brief questions with which he received the blind artist were kindly,
and as natural as though addressing an equal, and every remark made in
connection with Hermon's answers revealed a very quick and keen
intellect.

He had seen the Demeter, and praised the conception of the goddess
because it corresponded with her nature. The sanctity which, as it were,
pervaded the figure of the divine woman pleased him, because it made the
supplicants in the temple feel that they were in the presence of a being
who was elevated far above them in superhuman majesty.

"True," he added, "your Demeter is by no means a powerful helper in time
of need. She is a goddess such as Epicurus imagines the immortals.
Without interfering with human destiny, she stands above it in sublime
grandeur and typical dignity. You belong, if I see correctly, to the
Epicureans?"

"No," replied Hermon. "Like my lord and King, I, too, number myself among
the pupils of the wise Straton."

"Indeed?" asked Ptolemy in a drawling tone, at the same time casting a
glance of astonishment at the blind man's powerful figure and
well-formed, intellectual face. Then he went on eagerly: "I shall
scarcely be wrong in the inference that you, the creator of the
Fig-eater, had experienced a far-reaching mental change before your
unfortunate loss of sight?"

"I had to struggle hard," r