mpty-handed."

"No one will greet the work which brings your friend the wreath of
victory with warmer joy," Proclus protested. "But, if I am correctly
informed, yonder house hides completed treasures whose inspection would
give the fitting consecration to this happy meeting. Do you know what
an exquisite effect gold and ivory statues produce in a full glow of
lamplight? I first learned it a short time ago at the court of King
Antiochus. There is no lack of lights here. What do you say, gentlemen?
Will you not have the studios lighted till the rooms are as bright as
day, and add a noble enjoyment of art to the pleasures of this wonderful
night?"

But Hermon and Myrtilus opposed this proposal with equal decision.

Their refusal awakened keen regret, and the old commandant of Pelusium
would not willingly yield to it.

Angrily shaking his large head, around which, in spite of his advanced
age, thick snowwhite locks floated like a lion's mane, he exclaimed,
"Must we then really return to our Pelusium, where Ares restricts the
native rights of the Muses, without having admired the noble works which
arose in such mysterious secrecy here, where Arachne rules and swings
the weaver's shuttle?"

"But my two cruel cousins have closed their doors even upon me, who came
here for the sake of their works," Daphne interrupted, "and, as rather
Zeus is threatening a storm--just see what black clouds are rising!--we
ought not to urge our artists further; a solemn oath forbids them to
show their creations now to any one."

This earnest assurance silenced the curious, and, while the conversation
took another turn, the gray-haired general's wife drew Myrtilus aside.

Hermon's parents had been intimate friends of her own, as well as of
her husband's, and with the interest of sincere affection she desired
to know whether the young sculptor could really hope for the success of
which Myrtilus had just spoken.

It was years since she had visited Alexandria, but what she heard of
Hermon's artistic work from many guests, and now again through Proclus,
filled her with anxiety.

He had succeeded, it was said, in attracting attention, and his great
talent was beyond question; but in this age, to which beauty was as much
one of the necessities of life as bread and wine, and which could not
separate it from art, he ventured to deny it recognition. He headed a
current in art which was striving to destroy what had been proved and
acknowledged, y