d of the sleeping man:

"I have an idea. All that matters is that my bust should serve to remind
you often of your mother; the bust need not stand in your rooms. The
busts of the women of the house of Ptolemy stand on the rotunda, which
you can see from your balcony, and which you can pass whenever you
please; some of them are badly mutilated and must be got rid of. I will
undertake to restore the Berenice and put your mother's head on her
shoulders. Then you have only to go out and look at her. Will that do?"

"Yes, Pollux; you are a good man."

"So I told you just now. I am beginning to improve. But time--time! if I
am to undertake to repair Berenice I must begin by saving the minutes."

"Go back to your work now; I know how to apply a wet compress only too
well."

With these words Selene threw back her mantle over her shoulders so as
to leave her hands free for use, and stood with her slender figure,
her pale face, and the fine broadly-flowing folds of rich stuff, like a
statue in the eyes of the young sculptor.

"Stop--stay so--just so," cried Pollux to the astonished girl, so loudly
and eagerly that she was startled.

"Your cloak hangs with a wonderfully-free flow from your shoulders--in
the name of all the gods do not touch it. If only I might model from it
I should in a few minutes gain a whole day for our Berenice. I will
wet the handkerchief at intervals in the pauses." Without waiting for
Selene's answer the sculptor hastened into his nook and returned first
with one of the lamps he worked by in each hand, and some small tools in
his mouth, and then fetched his wax model which he placed on the outer
side of the table, behind which the steward was sleeping. The tapers
were put out, the lamps pushed aside, and raised or lowered, and when at
last a tolerably suitable light was procured Pollux threw himself on a
stool, straddled his legs, craned his head forward as far as his neck
would allow, looking, with his hooked nose, like a vulture that strives
to descry his distant prey-cast his eyes down, raised them again to take
in something fresh, and after a long gaze looked down again while his
fingers and nails moved over the surface of the wax-figure, sinking
into the plastic material, applying new pieces to apparently complete
portions, removing others with a decided nip and rounding them off with
bewildering rapidity to use them for a fresh purpose.

He seemed to be seized with cramp in his hands, but sti